News

Accurate predictions of wave movements in the North Sea are crucial in marine and coastal engineering projects. For example, for installing an offshore wind turbine in the North Sea. The better the predictions of wave movements, the better you can plan the implementation of projects at sea. Experts from Coastal Structures & Waves at Deltares have discovered that you can better predict wave movements by linking process-based models to machine learning models.

Last week, Deltares organised a symposium in Delft on the 'Emulation of 2D flood modelling: exploring deep learning techniques and low-fidelity approaches'. Expectations were high given the growing interest in advanced ways of modelling floods. The symposium was attended by representatives from across the industry, including academia, universities, market parties, and policymakers.

The SpongeScapes Project, which accelerates solutions that improve sponge functioning of the soil, groundwater, and surface water systems, officially started on 1 October. Funded by the European Union as part of the Horizon Europe programme, the project brings together ten European partners. Deltares is responsible for the coordination of the project, which will run until 2027.

We have to adapt: not only in how we design and use our living environment, but also in how we handle and accept uncertainties. This is illustrated in our latest issue of Deltalife, our corporate magazine. This issue presents a richly varied picture of Deltares; work around the globe.

Due to rising sea levels and changes in storms, floods from the sea are expected to become more frequent in the coming decades. How the probability of a storm surge will change as a result of climate change has been studied by an international team, led by Deltares expert Sanne Muis and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

The global water crisis challenges our current paradigms for water management, and urgently calls for action and innovation in science and policy. The UN 2023 Water Conference, which took place in New York earlier this year, was a moment to spur much-needed water action. This urgency was reiterated last week during the World Water Week in Stockholm and the Vienna Water Conferences (including the 40th IAHR World Congress, the World Large Rivers Conference, and the Danube Conference). Over 20 Deltares experts attended these events, bridging the gap between scientific research, policy formulation, and implementation. Their expertise is further strengthened by Deltares’ software offer for both policymakers and practitioners alike.

Studies on sea-level rise often claim to be useful for local decision-makers and adaptation planning. However, which results are most useful for local to global decision-making and what can researchers do to improve the utility of their findings? Researchers from Deltares, WorldBank, UC Berkeley and Utah State University gave their view on this question and published their results in Nature Climate Change. Deltares experts Ad Jeuken and Kees van Ginkel focused on the utility of global modelling studies for national-scale decision making.

In collaboration with WUR, Deltares has launched a study into the link between drought levels and the likelihood of wildfires in the Netherlands. Increasingly, wildfires last longer and affect larger areas. The recent large fires in Canada and Catalonia are cases in point. Earlier this year, there were also wildfires in our dune areas, and in Limburg and Brabant, with extensive damage as a result.

A few weeks ago, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and Disaster Preparedness Network Nepal (DPNet) unveiled the RA2CE tool, aimed at improving emergency response in Nepal.

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.