News

Today, professor Bart van den Hurk, Scientific Director at Deltares, has been elected as co-chair for the 7th Assessment Cycle of the IPCC’s Working Group II. The vote took place during the 59th IPCC plenary meeting in the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya.

Narratives of the future matter in climate adaptation. The narrative that certain areas will inevitably become uninhabitable due to sea level rise is powerful but may silence important debate about alternative climate adaptation futures. This is the conclusion of a paper published today in Nature Climate Change by researchers from Deltares, Griffith University, University of Melbourne, Wageningen University, and the Pacific Theological College.

Deltares celebrates 15 years! A special milestone that we celebrated with an anniversary symposium 'Managing with water and soil'. Three experts from Deltares, Marta Faneca, Thomas Bles and Ruben Dahm, told their inspiring stories about how densely populated deltas can remain liveable, sustainable and safe. “Look through the eyes of our children to clarify the plans for future water and soil management,” is the conclusion of the panel discussion with figureheads from the water and soil sector.

The possibility of a much faster rise in sea levels poses major challenges for the Netherlands. An adaptive and flexible response to future sea level rise is an innovative way to prepare for that uncertain future. One way to go about this is coastal maintenance in the form of sand nourishments. Two recent studies by Deltares and partners, one of them commissioned by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management as part of the Sea Level Rise Knowledge Programme, demonstrate that there are many options available for sandy coastal management, on condition that enough sufficient sand reserves continue to be readily available.

Port and waterway authorities usually protect their infrastructure, such as quays and berths at locks, from erosion caused by ship propellers by installing bed protection. Recent research is improving the way the behaviour of currents caused by ship propellers during mooring and berthing is mapped with new measurement techniques and advanced calculations. The outcomes provide valuable knowledge for infrastructure managers. By designing bed protection smarter, managers can save on costs, materials and emissions. In this research, knowledge institutes Deltares and MARIN are working together with port companies, the Dutch Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat) and contractors.

Dikes on a substrate of tidal sand (sand deposited in a tidal area) are more resistant to ‘piping’ than dikes on river-sand deposits. That has been demonstrated by a large-scale innovative research project in the Hedwige polder in Zeeland (NL). Thanks to the project, at least 160 million euros will be saved, local residents will be inconvenienced less by dike upgrade projects and the burden on the environment will be reduced. The project was conducted in close collaboration by Deltares, the Hollandse Delta water authority, the Dutch Flood Protection Programme and Fugro.

The Land Subsidence and Foundations Knowledge Centre was officially opened today at the Tenth International Symposium on Land Subsidence (TISOLS). TISOLS is an international scientific congress about land subsidence. The Netherlands is hosting the symposium again after almost thirty years. Land subsidence experts from throughout the world gathered for a week to discuss the latest insights and methods in the domain of land subsidence. The final day was in Gouda and it was devoted to bringing science and policy together.

The recent IPCC report states that sea level rise poses a distinctive and severe adaptation challenge. It implies dealing with slow onset changes and increased frequency and magnitude of extreme sea level events, which will escalate in the coming decades. Such adaptation challenges would occur much earlier under high rates of sea level rise. Data on the projected population at risk to coastal flooding is now available on Deltares’ BlueEarth Data platform, a web-based application supporting the study and sharing of integrated water and subsoil-related data.

In collaboration with the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), Deltares today presented the four-yearly report about the observed sea level on the Dutch Coast. Improved techniques for analysis were used to determine the effect of wind on sea level more accurately. The conclusions about sea level rise are therefore more robust. The most striking result is that the increase of sea level rise can now also be seen on the Dutch coast.

The International Panel on Deltas, Coastal Areas and Islands (IPDC) was officially launched at the UN 2023 Water Conference. The IPDC is a unique partnership, bringing together governments, financial institutions, scientific experts, and practitioners from around the world. During the event, ministers and high-level representatives from 12 countries and international financial institutions expressed their support for the IPDC and stressed the need to take climate adaptation action. The IPDC is a Dutch government-led initiative, and is supported by Deltares, the Global Center on Adaptation, and the Delta Alliance.