The Source: Water, Food and Energy Nexus GVR to Colombia

RUPPEL
Volume 24 - November 2014
The Source: Water, Food and Energy Nexus
GVR to Colombia
Leermeester Prof. Nick van de Giesen
Ruud van de Ent and the PhD process
Royal HaskoningDHV working on Canal del Dique
Colofon
From the editors
Volume 24, Number 3, November 2014
Dear Druppel reader,
The ‘Druppel’ is a magazine of the student society of watermanagement of the TU Delft. The magazine is published three
times a year.
Editors:
Frans Willem Hamer
Pradeep Rathore
Sandra de Vries
Parvathy Chandrasekhar
Thibaut Visser
Design:
Frans Willem Hamer
Thibaut Visser
The ‘Druppel’ is distributed to all members and relations of the
‘Dispuut Watermanagement’, Faculty of Civil Engineering and
Geosciences
Contact:
This might be the first Druppel you will ever find on your
doormat! Of course you have all been waiting with great anticipation for this issue and it will not disappoint you. The theme
of this Druppel is The source: water, food and energy nexus.
The growing global population, demand for higher living standards and climate change are a pressure for changes in all three
sectors, but the changes in one have consequences in another.
This asks for an Integrated Water Management approach and
new technologies. And of course we have much more!
We hope you haven’t yet got accustomed to the spice that
has come with the recent issues, since sadly our Indian editors
Parvathy and Pradeep are about to leave... The remains of the
committee would like to thank them for their work but above
all for their pleasant company. By means of goodbye, Parvathy
will be looking back on her time in Delft.
Enjoy reading!
On behalf of the Druppel Committee,
Frans Willem Hamer
Dispuut Watermanagement
Room 4.74
Stevinweg 1
2628 CN Delft
015-2784284
druppleDWM@gmail.com
www.dispuutwatermanagement.nl
Incoming mail
Do you have any comments on the articles? You don’t agree
with the contest winner? Or do you just want to share your
water story with us? Send in your mail and we can place it in
the next Druppel!
The committee, from left to right: Frans Willem, Sandra,
Parvathy, Thibaut and Pradeep
2
Content
A word
From the board p6
A view from Peter Jules van Overloop in his Column p7
An Interview with our brand new Leermeester
Prof. Nick van de Giesen p26
An article from the “Druppeltje” p36
A Historical water figure: Bagirath p35
The Source: water, food and energy nexus
Used water: a source of resources p8
Leonardo Da Vinci
and the source of water p9
Geodata for Agriculture and Water p10
Marij and her thing for ‘Tankie’ p24
In Depth
PhD: Propositions and the PhD process p12
The GVR, Colombia p14
Perspectives from a visiting student.
Looking back at two years in Delft p18
Engineers Without Borders-NL p23
Company case: Rehabilitation of Canal del Dique p30
Project abroad: Run, Sanitation system, RUN p33
Cookie Break DIY p34
Graduation project, Field Research in Mozambique p37
5
From the Board
By the time you are reading this, the first period of the academic year has already passed. It has been a while since the
previous Druppel, and a lot has happened since.
Starting just before the summer, we had an amazing sailing
weekend. Enjoying the wind, sun and water we travelled over
the lakes of Friesland. During the summer, we went even further. A group of students, accompanied by the wise guidance of
Erik Mostert and Jules van Lier, went to explore the waters of
Colombia. From waste water to drinking water, from oceans to
a cup of very fresh coffee, all the water aspects of the country
were thoroughly analysed.
Then, after a summer of silence, the new academic year started
with new challenges, new students and new events. We had a
wonderful and sunny master introduction day, a nice barbecue,
and a delicious beer tasting event. But also behind the scenes
there were some changes. We decided to support the most
sustainable beer brewery in the Netherlands, Gulpener, whose
beers you have tasted by now. And we constructed a new bar
at the Dispuutshok where you can enjoy a break or have a
meeting, possibly accompanied by some Gulpener pils.
Hard Work
Most importantly, the new committees are already working
hard to organize the next events. On January 9th, we will have
our next symposium together with the new year congress of
sanitary engineering. And of course there will be lunch lectures,
drinks and many other interesting events coming up.
But for now, enjoy reading the long due Druppel!
Graduates list At a certain age, I decided to work 10% more than what was expected of me. That also meant
a 10% increase every year of what I learned and this made the working easier and as such,
more fun. I realized that year after year after year, 10% on top of 10% on top of 10% increases
fast. After so many years, I can say that I probably have a two times more fun job than most
of my pre-university friends: I can work with nice, enthusiastic and smart students, get paid to
solve tricky puzzles, travel all over the world and play CEO of an innovative spin-off company.
So, it pays!
Last month, this became apparent once again. ‘Our Nick’ got awarded the ‘Leermeesterprijs
2014’ and the read list of accomplishments was long and diverse. Not something you achieved
from nine to five and four times a year on holiday ‘letting it all go’. Nice as well, but please do
not complain that your work is getting so boring. On stage, there stood a truly happy man that,
besides his talent, just worked very hard for it. And everybody gave it to him wholeheartedly.
But again, that’s not the point. The feeling when you press the ‘Submit’ button of a good research proposal or journal paper or a student who begins his graduation ‘blue’ and at the end,
there’s like a real engineer.That is something for yourself, something that makes you sway open
the door of the university every day with pleasure, something you can lie awake for at night,
not out of stress, but of the anticipation of the day ahead.
On behalf of the 55th board,
Thibaut Visser
Column
Author:
Peter Jules van
Overloop
Maybe I need to see if the term ‘workaholic’ has something to do with the above. Just googled:
‘Work addiction or workaholism is not a recognized diagnosis in Tthat it does not Aappear in the current version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, nor is it to go into the next
Proposed version, the DSM-V’
July-October 2014
Phew, I am okay for the time being with this delicious and socially accepted addiction...
Sanitary Engineering
Weilai Li
Novel monitoring for dynamic VFA production from anaerobic kitchen waste digestion
Jiayun Lu
Ceramic nanofiltration of sewage as a pre-treatment for RO
Danqing Yang
Cleaning of bio-contaminated drinking water distribution systems
Struan Robertson
Improving selection in Nereda® treatment plants
Marij Zwart
From pollutant to fuel: A proof of principle for electricity production using nitrogen from sewage as a fuel
Lobke de Pooter
Ammonia treatment based on urea addition
Hydrology
Jason Chin Tze Voon
Conceptual Modelling of the Padas Catchment: Understanding Catchment Behaviour with Expert Knowledge & Model Realism
Mark de Weerd
Modelling ungauged lowland basins
Vincent de Looij
Using tracer data to calibrate a flexible, topography driven conceptual hydrological model
Qian Li
Optimal use of the subsurface for ATES systems in busy areas
Coert Strikker
Groundwater modelling of he Khettara area of Fezna-Jorf-Hannabou, Morocco
Marianne Tijs
Subsurface freshwater storage & recovery
David Brakenhoff
An upscaling method for top-systems with layered heterogneiy and vertical anisotopy
Arjan de Kloe
Calibrating a rainfall-runoff model in a data scarce catchment in Mozambique
Water Resources Management
Gerard Pijcke
Water quality modelling for Gardens by the Bay, Singapore
Hyo-Mee Duerinck
Observed soil moisture-precipitation feedback in Illinois. A statistical analysis over different scales
Richard Geerling
Infiltration swales, suantitative performance on an urban catchment scale
Rens Hasman
Water Allocation Assessment to Support IWRM in the major river basins fo Myanmar: Now and in the Fututre
Martijn Koolen
The effects of urban drainage system functioning on building structure and content
Parvathy Chandrasekhar Drinking water security in Peri Urban India; a case study in Hyderabad
6
The Mobile Gate Tracker is one of the products of Mobile Water Management presently in use by water
boards Aa en Maas and HDSR. By taking a picture of the level tool on the side of the tilting weir, the angle of the weir is determined using image recognition and by knowing the level of the joint and the radius
of the weir, the absolute gate level is determined and put in the central database
7
The source:
water food and
energy nexus
Author:
Henri Spanjers
Associate professor industrial
water
Used water: a source of resources
If the crew on the International Space
Station (ISS) were to use the European
average of 130 L of clean water per person per day, and waste the same amount,
then a cargo space craft would have to
deliver 25 tons of fresh water, one tank
truck, up to the ISS, every month! And
this, at a freight rate of €34,000 per liter water. No need to say that this has
been a strong incentive to use much less
water, and reuse all the used water on
board, including the pees of crew and lab
rats. The situation seems to be less critical on spaceship earth. In some countries
earthlings use and waste daily 400 liter
(USA) or even 500 liter in the bone-dry
Kuwait at the cost of less than a cent per
liter. And yet there is an increasing pressure on the world to reduce the water
consumption and after treatment, reuse
the treated water. Not only because
fresh clean water becomes scarce, but
also because used water contains valuable resources that can be recovered and
reused as well.
Both municipal and industrial used water
may serve as a source of resources. This
is even truer in the Netherlands since
virtually, all used water from the municipal and industries are managed, so the infrastructure exists to develop alternative
exploitations. However, while municipal
used water, or sewage, is rather consistent in terms of composition and hence
provide opportunities for resource recovery, industrial used waters vary considerably between industries and so do
the opportunities of recovering resources from it. The most obvious resource
to be recovered from sewage is water.
Treated sewage can be used for irriga-
tion and city greening, or it may be used
by industries. For example Evides Industriewater processes the effluent of the
Terneuzen Sewage Treatment Plant (STP)
into process water that is utilized by the
local production facility of Dow Chemical. Another example is the upgrading
in Emmen of STP effluent to ultrapure
water that is used by NAM to generate
steam that is injected into sandstone soil
layers near Schoonebeek to extract viscous oil. Yet another example is the ongoing research at Harnaschpolder STP
to utilize the upgraded effluent in greenhouses or for groundwater suppletion to
combat brackish water intrusion.
Other products than water may also be
recovered from STPs. Potential products include: biogas, cellulose, struvite,
bio-plastics, (heavy) metals, humic acids,
alginate, sulfur, nitrogen, phosphorus and
potassium. The potential of some products is substantial: for example in the
Netherlands 140,000 ton per year of
cellulose may be harvested and 14,000
ton per year of phosphorus, which may
be instantly used in the paper industry
and fertilizer industry, respectively. The
challenge here is, of course, that current
practice at STP is not based on resource
recovery: their core business has always
been to treat sewage to an acceptable
effluent quality, while keeping operational costs at a minimum. STPs are not
equipped to produce commodities.
Moreover, the current practice of managing municipal sewage is inefficient if
it comes to resource recovery: we use
large volumes of clean water to dilute
household used water, dilute it even
more with rain water, and transport the
mixed stream to the STP where big efforts are made to recover resources
from the diluted sewage. A much better
approach is to reduce the clean water
consumption (that is: less dilution), avoid
mixing of streams, and recover resources
from the separate concentrated streams.
And this all at the household level. Grey
water may be a source of water for toilet flushing or irrigation, and heat may be
recovered.Yellow water may be a source
of phosphorus and potassium, or electricity by burning the urinal ammonia in
a fuel cell (pee to power). Brown water
can be digested anaerobically to provide
a source of biogas and fertilizer.
Industrial used water may be treated
for use outside the industrial facility. Examples are the irrigation of crops with
effluent from a brewery, and the supplementation of ground water with effluent from a food industry. More obvious
is the use of effluents by other (neighboring) industries, for example within
industrial parks, or within one industry.
The latter offers many opportunities:
not only treated mixed effluent may be
reused but also used water from different unit operations may be reused after
treatment in the same operation (kidney
process) or in other unit operations. Different unit operations require various
water qualities and various residual water streams are generated. This creates
a multitude of reuse options within the
same unit operations, between different
unit operations, and without or with a
range of optional treatment steps. Further, depending on the kind of industry
also industrial source separation increases the efficiency of recovery of various
resources such as energy, metals, fats,
sulfur and salts. S
Leonardo Da Vinci and the source of water
Leonardo Da Vinci spent a large part of
his life on understanding the movement,
circulation and physical characteristics
of water in all its forms. The source of
Leonardo’s obsession with water might
well have been the flooding of the river Arno in 1466 that took place in and
around his town Anchiano.
Initially, Leonardo did not see evaporation and precipitation as the main driving forces of the hydrological cycle. He
thought that water comes “from the
bottom of the mountains, and leads and
holds it within the summits of the mountains, and this, finding some fissure, seeps
continuously and causes rivers”. Water
would travel from the ocean to the top
of mountains via large subterranean rivers. The energy to transport the water
upward was assumed to come from the
heat of the sun and the “element of fire”,
in the same way as the blood circulation
in the human body: “the natural heat of
the blood in the veins keeps it in the
head of man, for when the man is dead
the cold blood sinks to the lower parts”.
However, Leonardo did conceptualise
the basics of the hydrological cycle: “we
may conclude that the water goes from
the rivers to the sea, and from the sea
to the rivers, thus constantly circulating
and returning, and that all the sea and the
rivers have passed through the mouth of
the Nile an infinite number of times”.
This doesn’t mean that Leonardo was
unaware of the existence of water vapour. He mentions that the blue colour
of the sky comes from the reflection of
sunlight on the water vapour and that
there is something like a humidity excess, which during summer causes dew
and during winter causes frost.
Leonardo clearly understood the vital
link between food and water for the
existence of all life on earth. If the hydrological cycle through the earth would
stop, then “the rivers will be deprived of
their waters, the fruitful earth will put
forth no more her light verdure; the
fields will no more be decked with waving corn; all the animals, finding no fresh
grass for pasture, will die and food will
then be lacking to the lions and wolves
and other beasts of prey, and to men
who after many efforts will be compelled
to abandon their life, and the human race
will die out.”
Though according to his theories, the
flow of water is driven by both the sun
and the heat in the earth, Leonardo does
consider the sun as the main source of
energy: “in the whole universe there is
nowhere to be seen a body of greater
magnitude and power than the sun”.
The source:
water food and
energy nexus
below upwards, from the bottom of the
mountains, and leads and holds it within
the summits of the mountains, and finding some fissure, seeps continuously and
causes rivers”. All very similar to the first
powerpoint slides of the first hydrology
classes. S
Main source for this article: Leonardo Da
Vinci’s Water Theory, On the origin and
fate of water. L. Pfister, H.H.G. Savenije &
F. Fenicia. To be obtained after graduating in
Hydrology.
Author:
Frans Willem
Hamer
At the end of his life, Leonardo’s source
of knowledge was not empty yet. He
became more and more aware of the
importance of evaporation and precipitation for the hydrological cycle: “in many
cases one and the same thing is attracted
by two strong forces, namely Necessity
and Potency. Water falls in the form of
rain; the earth absorbs it from the necessity for moisture; and the sun evaporates
it, not from necessity, but by its power”.
“They [the clouds] are often wafted
about and borne by the winds from one
region to another, where by their density they become so heavy that they fall
in thick rain; and if the heat of the sun
is added to the power of the element
of fire, the clouds are drawn up higher
still and find a greater degree of cold, in
which they form ice and fall in storms of
hail. Now the same heat which holds up
so great a weight of water as is seen to
rain from the clouds, draws them from
Reuse of water by DOW in multiple
cycles
8
9
The source:
water food and
energy nexus
Author:
Parvathy
Chandrasekhar
Dr. Ir. Mark Loos
Company:
Netherlands Space
Office
Geodata for Agriculture and Water (G4AW)
The Netherlands Space Office (NSO) acts as the governmental
space agency in the Netherlands and has the task to develop
and implement the Netherlands’ space programme. The Geodata for Agriculture and Water (G4AW) Facility is a new programme of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and tries to
improve food security in developing countries by using satellite
data. NSO is executing this programme. The main goals of the
G4AW facility are
1) To improve the output of agricultural, fishing and pastoral
sector
2) To reach a minimum of 10% increase in sustainable food production
3) To help achieve a 10% more effective use of inputs
4) To focus on sustainable improvement and increase of food
production
The increasing population has escalated the food demand of
the planet. By 2050 the world population will reach 9 billion
and the demand for food is expected to increase by 70%. A key
element to enable sustained food production and water use
efficiency is to provide smallholder farmers and pastoralists
in developing countries with relevant information. The use of
satellite data helps in providing fast, timely and accurate information to millions of food producers. This information can be
used for analyzing water use and productivity, strategic planning and water rights, detection of nutrient deficiencies and the
ability to take timely measures to minimize agricultural losses. Satellite imagery provides a cost effective way to estimate
crop yield and its variability without the need for expensive
machines or GPS based yield monitoring equipment.
Additionally, the use of technology like mobile phones and internet assists in reaching out to farmers even in remote areas. Mobile phone based services providing up-to-date market
prices have already been proven successful in Africa and India.
With satellite information, it can help the farmers in accessing
relevant crop-related information and help to bridge the gap
between the farmers and experts. Mobile related services also
include delivery of financial, agricultural, health and educational
information and services. Radio, television and internet are also
used for providing early warnings and weather information. Increasing the quantity and quality of communication networks
enables millions of food producers in remote areas to benefit
from relevant agricultural information, empowering them to
make better decisions in sustaining and increasing their harvest
10
thus securing their livelihood. Also, micro-insurances and/or
micro loans combined with information services can help guarantee the continuity of food production. Consequently, these
services can help improve the sustainable food production and
improve the efficiency of inputs like water, seeds, fertilizer, etc.,
thus alleviating poverty and sustaining economic growth and
self reliance.
The G4AW facility provides a platform for partnerships of
public organizations, research institutes, private sector operators, farmers’ cooperatives, satellite data operators and NGOs
to set up large scale, demand driven and customized satellite
based information services in the G4AW partner countries.
The partner countries are Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina
Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Colombia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia,
Kenya, Laos, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, Niger, Uganda,
Rwanda, Senegal, South-Africa, South-Sudan, Tanzania, Vietnam,
Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Partnerships and information services
for food producers are stimulated by creating a programme
that promotes and supports private investments for such services. In preparation of the second G4AW call, NSO has visited
several partner countries to bring together such organizations
and inform them about the G4AW program. When these organizations manage to form partnerships with a common goal,
the combination of improved mobile connectivity, new satellite
services and private investments offers the opportunity for
scaling up innovations to large-scale implementation and operations. S
PhD
Propositions and the PhD process
PhD
Author:
Dr. Ir. Ruud van
de Ent
References:
figure 1: The fresh Dr van de Ent, his paranymphs and the ‘hooggeleerde opponenten’
figure 2: The Grant Cycle (phd comics.com, Jorge Cham)
figure 3: The PhD process (phdcomics.com, Jorge Cham)
Recently, on 2 September, I successfully defended my PhD thesis (see Figure 1) entitled: “A new view on the hydrological cycle
over continents” in which I show how important land evaporation is for local and remote precipitation. This is all very interesting with important implications for land and water management and I can recommend everyone to read it. However,
the even better part of the PhD defence are the propositions.
Propositions? Perhaps this nowadays typical Dutch academic
phenomenon requires some explanation.
be stated as a general rule that the total number of propositions
should not exceed ten.”
is a substantial risk of a scenario unfolding as indicated in the
lower half of Figure 3. In a desperate attempt to get money
from the Funding Agency, the scientist loses touch with reality.
Let’s look again at my proposition. N now, if the scientific grant
system was to be applied in, for example, football, the underdog
would never be able to win. Because Tthe team with the lesser
players, according to the likes of Johan Derksen and René van
der Gijp, would be disqualified before a ball has been kicked.
Political elections would become redundant as former politicians would simply grant the victory to whom they think have
the best proposal. Does, however, a football match always unfold the way it is expected, or do politicians do the things they
promise? Undoubtedly the answers to those questions are all
no.
In the Middle Ages it was not necessary to produce in a thick
book in which you reported on the findings of your own research to obtain a doctoral degree. A successful defence of a
small number of propositions sufficed. Back then, being able to
express yourself verbally, in Latin of course, and defending the
views of your school of thought with empirical and logical arguments was considered far more important than a writing a report. It were the physicians, in the beginning of the nineteenth
century, who first came up with the idea that it was necessary
to also report on your own research. An absurd idea for the
jurists at that time, as they found eloquence to be of much
more importance and continued to hand out doctoral degrees
based on the defence of propositions until the beginning of the
twentieth century.
Propositions accompanying the thesis are obligatory at all
Dutch universities, except for Utrecht University which specifically forbids the publication of propositions. Some would
consider the propositions nowadays to mainly serve a traditional purpose. I disagree as they allow us scientists to proof
that we can say something intelligent about more than just our
own research.The nice thing is namely that the propositions do
not have to be related to your research. In fact, the TU Delft’s
Doctorate Regulations specify: “At least six of these propositions
should concern topics not related to the subject of the thesis. It may
12
I would like to share one of my own propositions with the
readers of Druppel:
“The awarding of subsidies based on research proposals is the same
as giving points beforehand at a football math to the team which
has, according to “the experts”, the best players, line-up and tactics.”
You should know that many of the people at a university are
not actually paid for it by that university. Instead, they get funded through research grants and teaching is something they
have to do additionally to their research. These grants or subsidies are mostly awarded by national or international science
foundations and organisations after the scientist has written a
promising proposal which received excellent reviews. Obtaining such grants is highly competitive business as only 10-15%
of the proposals are successful. M€-proposals are sometimes
reviewed by only two or three people, while proposals from
applicants with an insufficient H-index (related to the number
of papers and citations to those papers) get thrown in the bin
unread.
Several scientists proudly list the grants they received, including
how much k€ or M€ was awarded, on their website. Those of
you not familiar with this system are probably thinking: “Wait
a minute here, they did not actually achieve anything yet, and
it is already claimed as an achievement, huh?” Those people
are right and actually there is little to no check on whether
and how well the proposed research is being executed. This
is not necessarily a bad thing as this lack of control allows the
scientist to act as in the lower half of Figure 2. The scientist in
question completely misuses the system and is not honest in
spending the money on the project he or she got the funding
for, but does in fact produce useful results. If the scientist would
exactly behave as it is supposed to work (top half Fig. 2) there
dents who have never been at a PhD defence, make sure you
seen at least one during your studies and be surprised about
the waarde promovendus and his paranymphs in white tie, the
hooggeleerde opponenten in gowns and caps, the beadle and
hora est! S
PhD Comics, http://
phdcomics.com/
comics.php, accessed
18 September 2014.
Loehle, C. (1990),
A guide to increased creativity in
research: inspiration
or perspiration?,
Bioscience, 40(2),
123-129.
The football analogy illustrates the main problem I have with
the awarding of subsidies by means of proposal writing. Are the
reviewers (Johan Derksen and René van der Gijp in the football analogy) really able to judge how interesting and valuable
the outcome of the proposed research will be? In science, the
reviewers could, for example, argue that somebody has not got
enough experience in a certain field. Charles Darwin (see Fig.
4) in today’s atmosphere would have likely been encouraged to
follow up on his early study of corals or geology for the rest of
his career. Another argument could be that a proposal is unrealistic, such as that of Albert Einstein. Luckily, these men did not
have to apply for grants in their time!
Admittedly, I do not provide any alternatives to the scientific grant system in this essay, but hey, that does not make my
proposition less true! On repository.tudelft.nl you can find my
other propositions as well as my thesis. As a matter of fact,
defending propositions is only one of the many traditions during Dutch PhD defences. Contrary to many other countries
PhD defences in the Netherlands are always public. For stu-
Board of Doctorates
Delft University of
Technology (2004),
Doctorate regulations, amended
version January
2012, Delft.
Van der Ent, R. J.
(2014), A new view
on the hydrological
cycle over continents, Ph.D. thesis,
96 pp, Delft University of Technology,
Delft.
figure 4: proposals
Wikipedia-bijdragers (2013), “Stelling
(proefschrift)”, Wikipedia, http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stelling_(proefschrift),
accessed 18 September 2014.
13
GVR
Colombia, oh oh!
What began as an idea scribbled on
the back of a beer coaster, followed by
months of planning, meetings and arrangements, finally came to fruition on a
dreary Monday morning in July. In front
of the CiTG building a group of students
and professors gathered and waited anxiously for the taxis to form the first link
in a long chain of transportation. Their
final destination? Colombia!
Author:
Abel Heinsbroek
After two uneventful flights – although
the GVR committee did manage to almost lose three quarters of the group at
Lisbon airport – we arrived at our first
big destination, Bogotá. Home to more
than 8 million people and situated at
around 2500 meters above sea level Bogotá is the sprawling capital of Colombia.
Although Colombia is situated very near
to the equator, the climate in Bogotá is
surprisingly like our own wet summers
here in the Netherlands. We learned a
lot more about Colombia’s peculiar climate during our first project visit to the
meteorological institute IDEAM.
Actually, there is no such thing as „Colombia’s Climate”. Due to the extreme
differences in geography and the close
proximity to the equator the climate
changes primarily based on altitude.
Colombia therefore knows dense rainforest, cold, rainy mountain valleys, snow
topped mountains, tropical beaches and
even scorching desert, all to be found
within a few hundred kilometers of each
other. Furthermore, the parts of Colombia that neighbor the pacific ocean
are the wettest regions on earth, with a
staggering 9 meters of rain falling every
year (for comparison, in the Netherlands
we receive a mere 0.7 to 0.9 meters per
year). Interesting to note – and another
example of the extreme diversity of the
country – is that despite receiving all that
rainfall the most populated areas actually
struggle with drought.
The presentation of IDEAM was followed by an interesting presentation by
Royal HaskoningDHV. They are currently working on expanding the Canal del
Dique – a shipping canal constructed by
the Spanish settlers to connect the Rio
Magdalena with important trading harbor Cartagena.
across the reservoirs and showing us the
unique vegetation living there. The visit
also served as a grizzly reminder of the
civil war fought in those mountains not
too long ago between the FARC and the
army. Still to this day there are military
outposts to guard the reservoirs and
dams against the rebels.
The next day we set out to discover
more of the city and paid a visit to the
Museo del Oro (Gold Museum). Here
an impressive collection of gold artifacts
collected from the indigenous tribes is
on display. Even more then now gold
was used a status symbol, with chieftains and shamans draping themselves in
gold bracelets, earrings and breastplates.
Our enthusiastic tour guide explained in
endless detail the quite impressive techniques the natives learned to manipulate
the shiny metal, ending our tour with a
finely detailed miniature raft completely
made from hair-thin strands of gold.
Bogotá was followed by a weekend in
the heart of the coffee region, in a small
town named Salento. From there we
took a jeep ride to hike around in the
Valle del Cauca, known for its lush forests, eye-catching wax palms that grow
up to 60 meters tall and hummingbirds.
At night we learned how to play Colombia’s national bar game,Tejo (pronounced
Teggo).The rules are a bit hard to explain
– partly because I already forgot them –
but it suffices to say the game involves
throwing rocks, gunpowder, explosions
and lots of aquardiente.
The museum visit was followed by a visit
of a completely different nature. Having
reached the semi-finals of the world cup,
the Dutch ambassador invited all Dutch
people in Bogota to watch the match at
his large mansion in the suburbs. Enjoying a cold Heineken beer and some Gouda cheese we watched our team fail to
reach the finals. Fortunately a lot of the
disappointment was made up for during our dinner at the restaurant Andres
Carne de Res – a crazy combination of
a night club, steakhouse and fairground.
Our last project visit in Bogotá entailed
the drinking water system of the city.
High up in the mountains surrounding
the city a system of large reservoirs collect the almost continuous rainfall, which
is used to supply the most of the city
with clean drinking water. The system
operator, EAB, went out of their way to
show us around, taking us on a boat ride
During our time in Salento we also paid
a visit to a coffee plantation run by a
British man who told us all the ins and
outs of coffee. The man fell in love with
Colombia ten years ago and quit his high
stress job as a computer engineer to
start his own plantation. In quick succession he showed us the complete process
of planting, harvesting, cleaning, de-seeding, peeling, drying, sorting, grading, roasting, brewing and drinking coffee.
Our next destination was the Salsa
capitol of the world: Cali! Here a busy
program of project visits was arranged
for us by the CINARA water research
institute of the Univalle University. Guided by their program director Luis Dario
we visited almost all the different work
areas the master Water Management
has to offer. For instance, we saw (and
swam in!) the source of the river supplying Cali with fresh water, situated high
up in the mountains surrounding the city.
We visited Colombia’s own version of
the Room-For-The-River program, with
all the social and technical problems that
come with it. And we paid a visit to Cali’s
enormous centralized wastewater-treatment plant, where at this moment only
chemical primary treatment is used, but
in the near future biological treatment is
to be implemented.
A highlight of our visit to Cali was the
long anticipated salsa night. We had arranged that after some salsa dancing lessons in our hostel a Chiva would pick
us up for a tour around the city. Chivas
are a traditional form of rural transport
in Colombia, and basically consist of a
bus chassis with a modified and brightly
painted wooden body. Our Chiva however, had its benches removed and replaced
by speakers, lights, lasers and even a small
foam machine. Blasting away salsa music
we traversed the city, leaving a large traffic jam in our wake and dancing the night
away.
After a very busy week in Cali it was
time for some well-deserved time off at
the Caribbean coast.We set out by plane
and shabby bus with overly enthusiastic
bus driver to Colombia’s most beautiful
stretch of coastline: Tayrona Park. After
a hike through the jungle where we saw
wild monkeys and even some sloths
hanging in the trees, we arrived at Cabo
San Juan, a postcard perfect bay, complete with bounty beaches, palm trees
and hammocks to sleep in.
After two perfect days that seemed
to pass way too quickly it was time to
take the same shabby bus to our final
project destination: Riohacha – a city at
the foot of the Guajira peninsula. Being
largely covered with scorching desert La
Guajira is the driest and hottest part of
Colombia and has immense problems
with water scarcity. To supply the cities
and towns on the peninsula with drinking
water ever deeper wells are drilled with
the inevitable salt intrusion as a result.
To combat this a reverse osmosis installation was setup a few years ago, but it is
already broken down due to corrosion
and bad maintenance.
With our visit to the desert completed
we were almost at an end of our study
tour. We spent two more days on the
Caribbean coast and flew back to Bogotá
where we had one last day to climb the
Mont-Serrate for a spectacular view of
the city and to cycle around the cities
expansive neighborhoods. S
14
15
16
17
Foreign
student
Author:
Parvathy
Chandrasekhar
18
Looking back on two years in Delft
It was with a lot of fears that I stepped on
the plane that brought me to the Netherlands. I was afraid of leaving all my near
and dear ones behind, I was afraid of getting lost in a culture that was completely
different from mine and I was afraid that
I would not be able to fulfill my ambitions of earning a Master’s degree from
one of the world’s most reputed universities. My initial days at Delft were filled
with uncertainty and a profound sense
of homesickness. I was reserved and shy
and couldn’t seem to interact well with
my classmates. However, as days went
by, I felt myself drawn to the beauty and
versatility of this new place I was in. This
place encouraged people to be who they
want to be without any qualms of what
others might think. This place helped me
form friendships that still run very deep
and this place helped me figure out what
I wanted to do with my life.
My fondest memories of Delft are waking up to a cold misty morning and
drinking a warm cup of coffee, getting
ready to be on time for classes, biking
through the narrow roads bordered
with canals (come sun or rain), trying to
follow what was being said in class and
grumbling about assignments. Weekends
meant a long bike drive with friends or
visiting a new town or city in the Netherlands. Food was the best part though.
Everything from apple tarts to waffles,
from Dutch cheese to wine – I tried
and I loved. My regular consumption of
brownies and chocomel added a few layers of insulation to my body but I don’t
regret any of it though.
Coming to Delft has been the best thing
that has ever happened to me. I learnt
a lot both personally and professionally.
I saw myself come out of a self-made
cocoon and am able to see the world
with a broader mind now. But most importantly, I learnt that I am going to miss
some good friends that I made here. I am
going to miss the smug guru Pradeep. He
is one of the most chaotic persons I’ve
seen and one of the most brilliant too.
From answering the silliest of my doubts
to making bad jokes, he has done it all.
I am going to miss the people at Druppel – Sandra, Frans, Thibaut and Pradeep
- and all the fun evenings we’ve had. S
The people in Ladakh in Northern India cook
water for tea (but also rice) with a solar reflector.
Water, food and energy in one picture.
Picture: Jimmy van Opijnen
Engineers Without Borders- NL
Engineers Without Borders (EWB) is an international
network which started from bottom-up. In Belgium our
Flemish sister organisation is already more than 20 years
old, with many interesting projects. The very successful
EWB USA has shown enormous growth and impact
in just a bit over 10 years of coming into existence. In
the Netherlands we started about 7 years ago under
the wing of the Dutch Royal Institute of Engineers. And
3 years ago we joined the initiative to connect all the
EWB’s around the world which all are doing great work.
A network of organisations is of course very nice, but
what do all these people do? What do we want to
achieve? Our goal is to promote, teach and implement
sustainable technical solutions for developing countries
which can be successfully adopted by local individuals
and companies. By doing so we believe we help to enhance the quality of life of people in developing countries
in a sustainable way. In short, we want to improve the
quality of life with technology.
We try to achieve our goals by doing the following:
1. Providing a platform where our members can exchange information and knowledge
2. Facilitating our members to initiate and execute successful projects
3. Tie companies and education institutions to the goals
of EWB
4. Unlocking the global network of EWB International
One specific activity is our yearly congress. We bring together about a 100 people on a specific day every year,
who are all active or interested in technology in developing countries; hydrological engineers, water specialists,
solar engineers, wind specialists, but also entrepreneurs,
government officials and teachers. It is always a very inspiring day where a lot of knowledge and contacts are
shared. This year the title of our congress is: “High tech
in low developed countries”. It will be an interactive congress where an inspirational group of speakers will work
with the participants to solve challenging problems.
NGO-case
Author:
Tjeerd
Dierckxsens
EWB the Netherlands is an organisation powered by
volunteers and we are always looking for enthusiastic
students and engineers who are in the water engineering
field. We can use help in many fields like project implementation, project coaching, institution building, technology education and fund raising. S
So if this article has made you more interested in EWB,
please check the following webpages:
www.ewb-nl.org
http://www.ewb-international.org/
https://www.kivi.nl/
www.kivi.nl
www.ewb-international.org
www.ewb-nl.org
23
Lab-setup
Author:
Marij Zwart
Marij and her ‘thing for Tankie’
I am honored to introduce you all to
Tankie. Tankie, an anaerobic membrane
bioreactor, and me spend most of my
graduation year together. Tankie is actually not really ‘one’ Tankie, but consists
of millions of anaerobic bacteria, which
controlled my life the last couple of
months. In this article I hope to explain
why and how Tankie and me got so close,
and also why I am grateful for our late
goodbye, which took place last June.
Nitrogen Removal combined with
Electricity production
Nitrogen compounds are essential for
living organisms. When a surplus occurs,
however, they can contribute to accelerated eutrophication, oxygen depletion
and fish toxicity in lakes and rivers. Consequentially, nitrogen is regarded as a
pollutant which has to be removed from
municapal wastewater before it can be
discharged into the environment.
However, according to the wise Richard
Buckminster Fuller ‘pollution is nothing
but the resources that we are not harvesting. We alow them to disperse only
because we are ignorant to their value’.
This quote is very applicable to wastewater in general, and my thesis research focused at proving the truth of this quote
specifically for the nitrogen present in
wastewater.
The starting point of my thesis research
is the fact that in a completely different
field of research, the field of the fuel cells,
it has been demonstrated that fuel cells
can produce electricity when ammonia
gas is used as a fuel. Theoretically, it is
possible to convert the nitrogen present
in municipal wastewater (in the form of
organically bound nitrogen and ammonium) into ammonia gas. Therefore, the
objective of my thesis research was to
convert and concentrate this nitrogen
and thus to create a solution sufficiently
rich in ammonia to function as a fuel for
a fuel cell. So, I tried to combine and implement a series of technologies, which
together remove nitrogen from municipal wastewater, while utilizing the potential of ammonia as a sustainable energy
source, instead of consuming energy for
nitrogen removal.
Tankies role in set up
An anaerobic membrane bioreactor
(a.k.a. Tankie), is a device that biologically removes the organic fraction of
wastewater, while producing biogas and,
due to the incorporated ultra-filtration
(UF) membrane, a solid-free high quality effluent. As luck would have it, during
this biological COD removal, the organ-
ically bound nitrogen as present in the
wastewater is converted into ammonium-ions, which are not captured by the
UF membrane. Hence, Tankie produces
an effluent, which is rich in ammonium.
Therefore,Tankie was considered a good
first step in a chain of technologies, aiming at the creation of an ammonia rich
gas that can be used as a fuel for a fuel
cell. The ammonium in Tankie’s effluent
was afterwards separated from the rest
of the effluent using ion exchange. A
fractioned collection of the ion exchange
brine was used in order to concentrate
this ammonium. After the ion exchange,
further concentration of the ammonium
was required, which I did by means of a
distillation tower in the laboratory of the
‘process and energy section’ at the TU
Delft. And eventually I travelled to Switzerland with my own ammonia solution
and biogas bags, to use a gasifier and a
solid oxide fuel cell to test if it was possible to produce electricity with my own
ammonia mixture.
Complex relationship
Overall, Tankie has always supported me.
During 123 days, Tankie has constantly
removed the COD from the daily fed
synthetic wastewater, producing biogas
and the ammonium-rich effluent that I
From pollutant to
fuel, the process
24
Lab-setup
needed. However, we had a complex relationship. Tankies intentions were pure,
but mainly due to the easy clogging of
all his feeding, re-flux and effluent pipes,
Tankie flooded, exploded or was upset
in any other way, almost on a daily basis.
Tankie is a slow adjuster, so in the case of
an extreme emergency or fatality, more
than a month would have been required
to let Tankie acclimatize and to produce
a stable ammonium rich effluent again.
Since an extra, pointless month with no
progression in the laboratory was not
something I desired, there was quite
a deal at stake for me to not let Tankie die. Consequently, I spent these 123
days constantly checking up on Tankies
well-being by spending time together in
the lab, checking the app on my phone,
with which I could check on Tankie from
a distance, and by asking my lab-mates
for help. In spite of all this effort, we did
not manage to keep each other happy.
Especially Tankies’ preference to flood at
Friday afternoons and Sunday evenings is
something that I never learned to cope
with.
Success
Eventually, I managed to produce electricity out of ammonia from wastewater
that was treated by Tankie. The ammonium in Tankies’ effluent was successfully
separated and concentrated through ion
exchange, further concentrated and converted from ammonium into ammonia
by a distillation tower and fed to a fuel
cell, generating power. Once it became
clear that through distillation I succeeded to produce a solution sufficiently rich
in ammonia for the fuel cell, the serious
decision was made that Tankie had done
all he could and thus that his time had
come…
Of course, I do miss him now and then.
Especially the beautiful moments we had,
like when I came back on Monday morning in the laboratory to find out that
Tankie had actually for once not caused
any problem during a whole weekend.
But I guess that’s life and I will have to
deal with that ;) S
Tankie
25
Interview
Leermeester Prof. Nick van de Giesen
Interview
produce things of which I think: ‘oh that’s cool, I didn’t think
about it, that’s new for me.’ It’s a very high level that we are
working at. The more I see that the more I enjoy it. Every PhD
candidate has to come up with 10 statements. I don’t have
to approve them, but I have to say that they are opposable.
Which means that I think you can discuss them.”
Authors:
Pradeep Rathore
and
Frans Willem Hamer
Foto from:
Ernst de Groot
The first of September Prof.dr.ir. Nick van de Giesen was awarded the Leermeesterprijs 2014.
The award for the Professor of the TU Delft “who excels in the quality of his/her teaching,
research and the effect it has on his/her (PhD-)students”. The successes of the Dutch football
team this summer inspired Druppel to ask him the same two cliché questions: “What was going
through your mind when…?” and “What are your future plans?”.
What was going through you mind when you heard that you’ve
won the Leermeesterprijs?
“First I was very much surprised. Huub asked me to meet him
in his office.He was very vague about the reason, but it was
basically my last month as the chairman of the department. I
thought a surprize party was bit over the top, but it was the
only thing that I could think of.
“The day of the meeting I was biking to the university with my
wife – which is something we do every twenty days or so – and
she said: ‘Yes, I also received a phone-call’. It felt strange that
she had to come as well for this boekenbon’. This made me
really wonder‘what could it be?’
“Even when I entered Huub’s room, I still didn’t get it. Then
they asked me: ‘If you would get the Leermeesterprijs, would
you accept it?’ I said yes, but even then I was thinking that they
are probably asking the same question to every professor at
the university.
“I was very surprised then and am still very happy since in
order to get this prize you have to go through many rounds. It
starts with the students. First the Bachelor students and then
the Master students, for which I have to thank the Dispuut.
They have to be very positive about me. Then the people of
the department have to run around – without making me notice it – and collect all the materials: a CV, scientific papers but
also letters from former PhD and MSc students.
“A broad range of different people have been approached, andanybody could have vetoed it. When they are asking around,
all these people have to react positive. Then the dean has to
approve, since only one person can be brought forward per
faculty. Then there is a group of peers, a committee that decides among the eight different faculties who will get the prize.
And finally it should get the approval of the Rector Magnificus.
26
The day in Huub’s office they couldn’t give it to me directly,
since they first wanted to ask me before asking the approval
of the Rector.”
You also gave an interview for Delta – the magazine of the
TU Delft – in which you say that “students have to tell me
something I don’t know yet” and that your approach is to let
students explore things on their own and help them if they get
lost. Do students understand your approach?
“Students don’t immediately get what is expected from them.
But even in the introduction course Integrated Water Management that’s how we work. Then I make it very explicit: this
is the real world, and I give some examples on what the real
work is like: very unpredictable. You have to be able to just
jump in and do it.
“So that’s why I keep an eye on it. And I learn from it as well.
In the beginning of the process students sometimes get lost,
which is not bad.I find that at this level there should be at least
be something new that comes out of the students themselves.
How it comes out is another thing.
“So that is my preferred style, but we can also make it more
structured. It’s ok to give directions for everything if someone
is at the end of their studies and cannot start over. But you do
hope that at this academic level students have developed their
own ideas and are able to stand for their ideas. I think that’s
something that distinguishes a university from other types of
higher education.”
Should students think independently?
“You should not oppose everything your professor says but
you should be able to think independently, yes. And I seriously
think that at one point you are at such a high level that you
What is a typical day for you? And how many hours do you
sleep? You said in Delta that you are always busy with work
and that “there are 168 hours in a week”.
“I did get some bad comments about that. But you know, it
was not meant to be normative in any way. It’s because I compare myself with my promoter who would go to bed around
midnight and wake up at 3 or 4. Compared to that I think I am
very lazy.
“For Dutch standards I work a lot but for American standards
I don’t. So, I wake up at 7 – ish. Sometimes I wake up a little
bit early but not too often. I used to come out and be here at
8. Now I stay at home and first look at the emails that came
in – which is a stupid thing to do, you should never do that, but
that’s what I do – I put out little fires that popped up during the
night and then I am here at 9. Then it’s usually meetings – a lot
of meetings. Every meeting is interesting, but in the end, after
having talked with 8 to 10 different people about completely
different subjects and with completely different settings I am
tired.
“I try to walk a lot. I try to save the energy to go for a walk but
that happens once or twice every week. After that I check my
emails again, which is less bad because my mind is more freed
then. What I plan is to be home on Tuesday mornings and on
Friday afternoons, but that has not really happened this year
because of the classes that just started. So on those days I can
do the more experimental stuff and in the weekend – Saturday
is always a very lazy day for me. September with all the classes
is a very intense month for me. We have changed the bachelor
classes last year, on which I have spent a lot of time.
“I work but A: I don’t expect other people to work as much.
And B: I hope that everybody does what they like to do. But I
think that there is a bit of a culture here in Western Europe –
especially in the Netherlands but also in Germany – that you
are not supposed to like your work. That is not how it should
be.”
Any time for hobbies?
That is walking. What I try to do in the weekends is going for
a longer walk. What I missed this summer was a walk for four
days in a row – a longer walk. Now I am looking at the calendar
for dates before Christmasto find these four days. It really
helps me to reset my mind a bit. I have walked the Pieterpad –
which goes from North to South – and there are quite a lot of
other paths that cross the country. Next time I’ll probably go
to Belgium for four days.”
A tour with a backpack?
“Well, I have been a student but I like my comfort these days
– so no tent and sleeping in the rain. I have a small backpack
with clean clothes and then I walk from hotel to hotel or from
B&B to B&B.”
How often do you take holidays?
“Not very often. Some tell me I have to do that. This year it
didn’t happen really. But I do travel a lot. And what I also don’t
want is to take three weeks off and sleep in a hotel. That’s
what I do so often that it should be an awfully nice hotel before
I’ll do that.
“Last year I went to Sardinia for a week. I’ve been there when I
was eighteen, and there is always a meteor shower around my
birthday. It should be very dark to be able to see the meteors,
and I thought Sardinia is one of those places. But over the 34
years tourism has increased a lot. Therefore it was not a success in terms of relaxing.”
In Delta you also mentioned the “things you like to do most,
but which are often moved to the weekend”. What are those
“things you like to do most”?
“There are tasks like fixing the budget and filling out forms –
really administrative things. I am not particularly good at it, but
of course I can do it. Sometimes there are conflict situations
which take a lot of energy. There are a lot of these things that
come with any job.
“The happier things like coming up with a new concept or
writing out an idea for a proposal I prefer to do in the weekend. It gives me energy – it does not drain energy – and it requires some uninterrupted time. I cannot write five lines now
and five lines then.”
About the future plans: From May onward you are going to
Stanford for five months – uninterrupted – to work on the
Africa project.
“I’ve made a shortlist of things I would like to look at. It will
be the second time I’ll go on sabbatical: five years ago I went
to Switzerland. When I was asked to join a board meeting or
to review something for the EU, I said: “sure, it’s my sabbatical
anyways”. So the first two months of the sabbatical I was travelling all over Europe.
“Now I want to focus on two major projects. One is the
weather stations in Africa. A colleague – the co-director of the
project from Oregon – will come to live with me and together
we will iron out some stuff. The problem with your life outside
of vacation and sabbaticals is that you always do the urgent
things, but not the important things which are not so urgent.
“The second project is the eWaterCycle project. It’s a global
hydrological model for which I would like to have a better look
at reservoirs and what they do. There are about 5000 big res-
27
We’ve slain the Spaniards
Interview
Celebrated for long
ervoirs in that model, and the way they are put into the model
is relatively simple: the average inflow is the outflow. I would
like to see if I can do better. And there are some students
working on it as well.”
At what stage is the eWaterCycle project now?
“There are three postdocs working on it: one in Utrecht, one
in Amsterdam and one here in Delft. Officially we should have
had it running on the 31st of August but we didn’t make it
and everybody planned their vacation afterwards. Now we’ve
planned to have something that is operational and running before Christmas. Not at the finest scale but at a fine scale: maybe five by five kilometres.
“The bigger problems of the world
like food and energy all have to
do with water.”
“It should run and be compared to satellite observations, just
like setting your watch: every now and then you synchronise
the model with observations. That is very difficult at such a
large scale. So if these things are included I will be very happy.
We are very close but still some work needs to be done before Christmas.”
One of our editors, Sandra, is now in Africa for a project of
Peter-Jules van Overloop and Olivier Hoes where they set up
a measuring system where surveyors inspect gauges and send
the data with their mobile phones. Is that the same project?
“It is a different project, but it fits in the bigger picture. It’s
interesting how things go. When I went to Switzerland I was
thinking about the big things that we should be doing. One
was that we have to measure more and the other was that we
have to be better with computers. We take the data as they
are, but we never go out to measure. Those are the two things
that have to change.
“There are a couple of new sources of data. You can make
them yourself, you can use satellites or citizens can participate
with their smartphones. It all fits in the same big picture.”
Are those the big issues for you that have to change in the
water sector, or do you think that there are more?
“No, those are pretty big I can assure you! There was an opportunity at the e-science centre. This Friday afternoon I had a
meeting with a bunch of scientists. They come from computer
sciences astronomy, medical science (genetics) but also from
humanities. While maybe we are a little ahead of the people
doing literature, we are so much behind all the other guys. We
just have not been paying attention. We were early adopters
in computer modelling but then it just stopped. We too often
say that it’s not possible or too difficult.
“The guys from astronomy are working on the Square Kilometre Array with which they can make astronomy images with
the highest resolution in history. They are going to produce
about 10 internets worth of data. We would say: ‘that’s impossible’. But it is not impossible! They just started thinking of
new ways of doing something like that by involving companies.
That’s what we should be doing too.”
ing. They might be able to drive independently, but he said that
that will take longer than I thought. But still it’s very impressive what they all know and how they manage all these traffic
streams. We should be able to do the same thing for water.
“And in the Netherlands it’s quite ok, but still there is a lot of
efficiency to be gained just by measuring, predicting and allocating water streams. The bigger problems of the world like
food and energy all have to do with water. There is no single
solution anymore, you have to go to every spot on earth and
say how much water is there, what the soil characteristics are,
what can grow there, what is needed and what is the best thing
to do. We just need the information and we have to do that
in a smart way.”
The projects that you mentioned, is there any scope for students to participate?
A lot! At eWaterCycle there are students looking with remote sensing at how we can say more about these reservoirs.
There is room for students looking at the data-simulation side
of things, and also on the TAHMO side. Even though we are
in a phase in which computer sciences are more involved we
still need the civil engineering background. For some students
it’s more interesting than for others. I wish we could have a little more cross campus student projects. I would like students
working on multidisciplinary projects to actually work with
people from other faculties, but I also know it can be difficult.”
We always ask if someone has advice for students, but since
you’ve won the Leermeesterprijs it might be better to ask: Do
you have any advice for other lecturers or professors?
“… I don’t know, we have a section with two Leermeesters
now… Mmm, just try to be nice to people!” S
But on the water
Is where we belong
A pirate’s life is rough
And feeling pretty numb
Shiver me timbers
let’s drink some more rum!
While playing songs
And changing the tack
We hit the shore
And pushed the boat back
On treasure island
We laid rest
Started a fire
And put on a vest
The next morning
We gave it a last try
But not with the traitors
Hang ‘em shoes high!
Is that what you think is the future of the watersector?
“What the future is I don’t know. But we are trying to make
it much and much smarter than it is now. This morning I was
looking at a presentation of a colleague from traffic. They
know of all these cars where they are and where they are go-
28
29
Company
case
Rehabilitation of Canal del Dique, Colombia
Canal del Dique is a 115 km long waterway, constructed in
the 16th century, connecting the Magdalena River with Cartagena, Colombia’s major Caribbean port. In 1980’s the canal
was reconstructed by making the canal straighter,shorter and
also wider to enhance navigability. This reconstruction caused
environmental deterioration of the adjacent systems of lakes
and coastal coral islands and mangrove forests caused by the
strongly increased water flow and sediment transport.
Author:
Harm Nomden
Company:
Royal HaskoningDHV
The La Niña of 2010-2011 caused extreme flows in the Magdalena River. In November and December 2010, dikes along the
Canal breached resulting in an inundation of 35,000 ha of land,
loss of hundreds of lives and rendering thousands of people
homeless.
The Assignment
In August 2013, Fondo Adaptación Colombia assigned Royal
HaskoningDHV and its partner, a Colombian engineering firm
Gómez Cajiao, to rehabilitate Canal del Dique. Fondo Adaptación is the public institution founded by the Colombian
President, Juan Manuel Santos, for the reconstruction and restoration of infrastructure affected by La Niña 2010-2011 in a
sustainable way, with adaptation to climate change.
The scope of the Canal del Dique project is to design and
implement the project, providing an integral solution optimized
for the requirements of flood safety, navigation, agriculture and
socio-environment. For the first time in Colombia’s history,
navigation locks and flow and sediment control structures will
be conjoined within an integrated water resources and flood
control project.
Work in progress
The project activities, started in August 2013, are in full swing
now. Upon request from Fondo Adaptación, preparation of
temporary protection works was done earlier to provide as
quickly as possible safe conditions to the inhabitants of villages flooded in 2010. Dikes are inspected to find weak spots,
designs are being made, tender documents for the temporary
protection works are finalized, and the civil works are expected to begin as soon as possible.
In the meantime, a large team of Dutch and Colombian specialists has been working on the planning study which will
prepare a permanent, integral solution, following principles of
Integrated River Basin Management. Extensive surveys focusing on ecology, hydraulics, hydrology and social aspects have
been done and baseline studies for the Environmental Impact
Assessment have just been finished. A modelling team of Royal
HaskoningDHV worked together with experts of Deltares on
complex hydro-morphological models. At this moment these
models are used to evaluate different alternatives. The preferred alternative will be presented in early 2015; this will be
followed up by detailed design.
The importance of this project is immense, as Roelof Moll, Royal HaskoningDHV’s Project Director, explains: “Our work to
design and support realization of effective water and sediment
management measures will help save lives and businesses, by
preventing and mitigating the extensive damage by flooding, as
well as protecting the people living along the Canal del Dique,
this project will safeguard the natural environment and benefit
the economy of Cartagena by boosting trade at its ports.”S
The consultancy services include an extensive data collection
(a.o. 1000 km2 Lidar topography, thousands of kilometres of
bathymetric surveys, flow and sediment measurements, installation of hydrographic stations, collection of environmental
data); environmental impact assessment studies supported by
modelling of water flow, salinity, sediment transport and inundation using 1D, 2D and 3D models of the Canal and adjacent
lakes, the Magdalena River and the coastal zone; planning and
design of restoration measures; environmental impact assessment; inspection and reparation of dikes; design of regulation
structures and river training works; technical assistance and
supervision of construction works.
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Maputo: run, sanitation system, RUN!
Welcome to Maputo, the noisy, growing, dusty, lively and expanding capital of Mozambique. Discovering and getting used
to the city in the first days was quite easy. And funny! Thanks to
Stefan and Odilia (there for their TU Bachelor Thesis) and our
flat mates. Maputo has been my house for three months, while
I was working on my additional thesis about the central waste
water treatment plant of the city.
The population of Maputo, of about 1.100.000 inhabitants, is
growing and more than half of the population of Mozambique
has no access to improved water resources. This water shortage is worsened by increasing salt intrusion. Moreover the
quality of the sanitation is poor. The water resources and the
sanitation system have to be improved to be able to guarantee fresh water and health. The project Sustainable Freshwater
Supply in Urbanizing Maputo, involving among others TU Delft,
UNESCO-IHE, University Eduardo Mondlane, Vitens-Evides International, Royal HaskoningDHV, Waterschapsbedrijf Limburg,
IRC (International Water and Sanitation Centre) and FIPAG
(Fundo de Investimento e Património de Abastecimento de
Água - Asset Holding Body for Water) is focused on wastewater reuse to alleviate both problems.
The central plant of Maputo treats at least 10.000 m3 of wastewater per day biologically in sedimentation lagoons and part
of this water is already reused by farmers in the area. There I
could take a look at how the treatment plant works and how
it is managed. With observations and interviews I also analyzed the actual agricultural water reuse and the present water
quality problems regarding safety of vegetable consumption
and working conditions, salinization of the fields and crop productivity.
Of course, not everything went smoothly & nicely. But I`ve
learned a lot from my experiences. A small compilation for you:
• I will not go into details, but wash the vegetables and fruit
very very VERY well before eating them.
• “Yes, it will be ready on Monday” does not mean necessarily “Yes, it will be ready on Monday”, but it can mean
“See you in two weeks” or “Nope, never”.
• Travel on the small busses (chapas) of Maputo is interesting and mysterious. Interesting because you can talk with
the other passengers (when there is enough space to be
able to breathe&talk).
• Be prepared when you take malaria prevention pills. They
can give you stomach ache and make you grumpy for a
couple of hours.
• A lot of people do not speak English, but sign language
does miracles.
• Gazelle meat tastes better with xima than with rice.
Project
abroad
Author:
Irene Caltran
Unfortunately during my staying in Maputo it was not possible to obtain reliable laboratory results for the water quality
parameters. But by studying the wastewater treatment plant I
could for instance conclude that:
• Inexpensive measures can be implemented to improve
the operation of the plant, its monitoring and safety, for
instance by cleaning the hydraulic structures, removing
excess vegetation, record regularly temperatures and climate conditions, fencing the treatment area and providing
basic safety equipments to the water operators.
• The load to the system seems to become critical. Therefore more capacity is needed with changing in the system
layout and treatment steps.
• It is possible to take more advantages from the treatment
plant: more water can be reused than now (for instance
by farmers that irrigate with higher-saline groundwater)
and fertilizers, biogas or electric energy can be produced.
There is still a lot of work to do for the project! If you are looking for a challenging subject for you thesis, additional thesis, etc.
take a look at the project website: http://sustainablewatermz.
weblog.tudelft.nl/ S
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Important
message!!!
Cookie break DIY-guide
Since the cookie breaks have started again, I thought it would be a good idea to give some simple instructions. For the best result,
follow these instructions carefully!
1. Pick up a cookie with your right hand (left hand if you are left-handed). Please ensure that your
thumb is placed on top of the cookie and the two fingers next to your thumb are placed under the
cookie and to the left of your thumb (right if you are left-handed).
Tip: Select a cookie that is light enough that you can lift it with one arm, yet not so small that you
need a magnifying glass to see it.
Author:
Dr. Anonymous
2. Take hold of the cookie with your left hand (right hand if you are left-handed) as well. Please ensure
that the thumb of your left (right) hand is placed on top of the cookie and the two fingers next to
your thumb are placed under the cookie and to the RIGHT (LEFT) of your thumb.You should now
be holding the cookie in both your hands.
3. Gently and simultaneously move your two thumbs downwards and the two times two fingers next
to your thumbs upwards. Continue until you hear a cracking sound.
4.You should now hold two half cookies instead of one complete cookie. If not, have your ears checked.
5.You can find the cookie break between the two halves in the space where there is nothing.
If you have mastered the art of breaking a cookie on your own, you can go on to the next level and try to break a cookie with
someone else. It works best if you select a left-handed person when you are right-handed and vice versa. If even this is easy for
you, try using your feet. Success! S
Bhagirath
Bhagirath was a great king who was accredited with bringing
Ganga to earth from the heavens. To honour this, Ganga is also
known as Bhagirathi. Technically he is more of a mythological
water figure than historical water figure.
Bhagirath was a descendant of King Sagara who had 60000
sons. He chose to perform a ritual to ascertain his undisputed supremacy on all kingdoms. A horse was set free to roam
through every kingdom. If a king does not pledge allegiance to
Sagara, he should capture the horse. This leads to the war and
if Sagara wins, the horse is freed to roam through the rest of
the kingdoms. One day, the horse was lost. Sagara ordered his
sons to bring back the horse. They searched for it and finally
found him tied next to the Sage Kapila, who was meditating at
the time. Legend has it that God Indra tied the horse there to
disturb Kapila’s meditation. Indra often did that to stop these
sages from becoming too powerful. Nevertheless, the princes
condemned sage Kapila, called him a thief and attacked him.
When the sage opened his eyes, his immense power and anger
turned the princes into ashes. When Anshuman, the grandson
of Sagara came looking for his uncles, Kapila told him that the
only way for his uncles to achieve salvation and their souls to
ascend to heaven is by bringing Ganges water to their ashes.
Ganges till then only flowed in the heaven with such immense
flow that it was considered impossible to bring it to earth.
The subsequent kings tried to bring Ganges to earth but could
not manage to do so while carrying out the administrative duties. Meanwhile, the curse took its toll resulting in an increase
in crime and natural disasters. When Bhagirath finally ascended
the throne, the situation was beyond control. He abdicated the
throne and started meditating (Tapasya) to gods to bring down
34
Ganges from heavens. It is believed he prayed for 1000 years to
lord Brahma. Finally he appeared and granted him a wish.When
he asked Brahma to bring river Ganges to earth so that he may
perform the final rites for his ancestors, Brahma suggested him
to pray to lord Shiva as only he was capable of breaking Ganga’s
fall to earth thereby saving earth from destruction. Bhagirath
prayed to lord Shiva while abstaining from food and water. Shiva was compassionate and appeared after just 1 year and told
Bhagirath that he should not have to do Tapasya for such a
noble goal. He assured Bhagirath that he would make Ganga
fall on his matted locks and save the destruction due to the
force of water.
Finally Ganga flowed down to earth. Bhagirath and other observers were terrified of the roar and volume of water coming
down, but Shiva kept his promise. Ganga finally passed over the
ashes of Bhagirath’s ancestors and the curse was lifted. Though
Bhagirath’s story is mythological, it is still a great inspiration to
anyone who seeks to do something noble despite overwhelming odds. S
Historical
water figure
Author:
Pradeep Rathore
Article from
Druppeltje
Field trip Luxemburg 2002
The following is an article an old Druppel (june 2002), formerly
know as the ‘Druppeltje’. The readers who just finished their fieldwork before summer might notice that things don’t change that
much.
Back in the days the druppeltje was written in Dutch. In order to
make this look into the history of the dispuut accessible to all our
readers, we give you a (literal) translation of one of its articles:
Author:
Joris Meijerink
Transalation:
Thibaut Visser
36
After a lot of advertisement for the fieldwork-practicum in
Luxemburg (read, 2 study-credits and one week of play in the
fields of Luxemburg), for the second and third year students,
more than 20 people were present at the briefing for what
we would actually do there. Most of the people present were
4th and 5th year students, but there were even older students
present as well.
We came together on the morning of May 8th, at the lab of sanitary engineering. At nine we left with two vans and a few cars
and arrived on the camping FuusseKaul four and a half hours
later. When the less fast cars crossed the finish as well, we
went on looking for our accommodation for the coming week.
We could choose between camper trucks or ‘rent-a-tent.nl’s.
Luckily I was already quite prepared and left my usual outdoor
gear at home. When everyone had found a tent-group and had
installed their gear, we came together in ‘the basement’. The
basement was an underground space which we used to eat our
breakfast, temporarily store beer, work with our test results,
and as laboratory to look at flowers and bees and do the occasional chemical experiments.
After a short introduction to the planning of the week, we
went out towards the dam, our second basecamp from which
we explored the catchment area. On the dam we installed a
couple of measurement equipment for meteo-data and had
a quick exploration of the surroundings. Afterwards we went
back to the campsite for some final decorations and prepare a
meal out of our food rations.
When on the next morning all the students were out of their
bed again, after not enough sleep and to much Diekirch beer,
we went back to the catchment-area. Today we would map the
catchment. The group was split into two and with the help of
GPS, sextant, camera, map and an analogue device to measure distance we explored the whole surroundings. At the end
of the day we went back into the basement to elaborate our
data for the map, which only one group was able to finish that
evening. This was group number one, who would go only for
quantity, not quality, for the rest of the week. Finally we ended
the day with the already familiar tradition of ‘tent hangen’ and
tasting the local beers.
The beer was tested on quality, which was good. At the same
time we looked at the effects of large quantities on human
beings. At the moment of testing the conclusion was that the
effects were comparable to normal beer.
The next morning the troubles with getting up and the bright
sunlight were doable. The next four days were filled with the
execution of different experiments, like drilling of holes (which
was raised to a true art by Patrick and I), collecting meteo-data,
determining soil moisture profiles, permeability of the soil, dis-
Field Research in Mozambique
It has already been some time, but my
trip to Mozambique is still clear in my
mind. About a year ago I went to Mozambique to do some field research for
my final thesis. In this article I would like
to share some of my experiences with
you.The problem of doing that is that we
are in a different position. I am the writer
and you are the reader. So, I define what
you can read. However, if it is not interesting enough, you won’t even read this
sentence, but you are already looking at
some pictures of the last events. I will tell
you some of my experiences in a couple
of short sections.
charge of the river and creeks and the water quality with the
help of the macro fauna and chemical analyses.
During the evenings few ample attempts were made to integrate with the ‘locals’. For this we found a disco on crawling/
dragging distance of the camp site, and raided the city Luxemburg. Unfortunately it was hard to find a bar there that suited
everyone, so the group split up into smaller groups. This way
we made a few detours. Eventually we asked a local for a bar/
disco with not to expansive beer. When we told him about
the bars we already visited, it appeared that Hugo, our guide
for that evening, brought us to a gay bar. That explained all the
interested looks… When we eventually arrived in the bar that
was nice, the other groups were already there.
But it was not all fun and festivity. Before the last day every
group had to give a presentation about the experiments that
were conducted. Especially for this event, professor Savenije
came over from the Netherlands and a few experts from Luxemburg were invited. The evening before the presentations all
the students were working until the early mornings on their
final conclusions. Luckily there is always someone who sees the
light, thank you very much Wouter. Unfortunately not always
the correct light, but at least there was something to say during
the presentation. After the presentations a few rewards were
given to different people. Noteworthy are the reward of best
guide which went to Wouter, and the one for the most stupid
remark which was won by Berry.S
Preparation
Going to another continent for the first
time in your life is not always easy. The
trip should be well prepared in order
to do the right measurements. I already
knew I wanted to make a rainfall runoff
model, but what are the possibilities in
five weeks to measure. Of course rainfall
and water levels are possible, but what
else. Anyway, I went to Schiphol on the
20th of January with a suitcase full of
clothes and measurement devices and
the adventure began.
People
When I arrived in Maputo, the capital city
of Mozambique, I felt lonely. But after a
while these feelings disappeared. I met
with professor Juizo from the University
of Maputo and he told me some things
about his country. A couple of days later
his uncle gave me a ride in the direction
of Xai Xai, my final destination. Also in
Xai Xai the people where friendly. I could
stay on a farm in my own small house and
there were always people around. The
only problem was the language. I don’t
understand a word of Portugese and the
other way round they didn’t understand
English. But with hand and face gestures
it was possible to make myself clear.
Graduation
project
measurements, based on the floating
bottle method, I had enough information
to make my model.
Finalizing
Back in the Netherlands you always realise you did not measure enough. However, it was possible to make a model.
Based on the outcome I wrote a report
and on the 25th of August I graduated.
End good, all good. S
Author:
Arjan de Kloe
Measurements
From the water board in Mozambique
I could borrow a motorbike. With this
motorbike I went into the catchment to
do my measurements. Driving a motorbike was new for me, so it took me a
while to investigate the catchment. But
every day I checked my three rain gauges and I took water samples to do an
isotope analysis. With water level measurements done by divers and discharge
37
Sudoku
Puzzles
Solutions previous issue
Nonogram:
Big Water Management puzzle:
Visionary responses to
global water challenges
Water Ambition and Imagination
We live in a complex world, shaped and challenged by water. Royal HaskoningDHV
understands these challenges and works with our clients to create solutions.
n Continuing to achieve economic growth in
changing times, using water as a driver for
growth and resilient communities
n Designing our cities of the future to
be Water Smart, with the hydro-social
environment in balance
n Creating Water Security and Resilience
through integrated management of
extreme events to deal with both floods
and droughts
n Connecting water infrastructure needs
with investment opportunities
Sudoku:
n Harnessing water as a resource and a
sustainable energy source
n More efficient water use for agriculture
through technical and institutional
solutions, to provide “more crop per drop”
n Reducing our water footprint and making
a step-change from eco-efficient towards
eco-effective water use
Contact us about helping to deliver your water challenges and visions.
royalhaskoningdhv.com
39
Retouradres:
Dispuut Watermanagement
Stevinweg 1, k. 4.74
2628 CN, Delft
The Netherlands
The Big Water Management Puzzle
a=o
1
2
3
at=ed
4
5
6
e=i
t=d
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Dear Water Managers,
This time the committee had to make
the puzzles of all puzzles without the
help of Sandra. But we tried our best and
hope you will be able to enjoy the result,
if you can find it.
Each image holds a cryptical meaning of
the word.
The answers to the last puzzle can be
found on the previous page. Maybe it will
help you to understand the way to solve
the puzzle.
Enjoy!