Innovation in the field of data and models in the water field
On Friday 13 June, the annual “innovation bus tour” (organised by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, RWS and DigiShape) took place. This year, the scope was innovation in the field of data and models in the water field.
The first part of the program took place at RWS Westraven. In addition to a demonstration of measuring boats, there were a number of presentations in the field of monitoring (Carola van der Hout and Dannie Beks of RWS), AI (Joost Driebergen of RWS), soil measurements (Patrick Bakhuijzen and Kai Hermann of Fugro), the use of data and models in the management of the rivers (Jan Span and Arjen Vos of Van Oord). The common threads were: “to measure is to know”, “dare to innovate”, dare to spend pre-competitively on the data” and “work on standardization and harmonization of data”.
Then the group left in the bus to the KNMI. During the Ride, Deltares (Hanneke van der Klis) and KNMI (Werenfried Spit) briefly outlined the dating and innovation activities of the institutes in which collaboration is the common thread. At the KNMI, a presentation by general director Maarten van Aalst on early warning and Werenfried Spit on the developments of AI in weather and climate forecasting followed. After lunch, there was a tour of measurement setups and the KNMI bunker.
Then we went to our last stop, namely the Soesterberg air base, where we were welcomed by the province of Utrecht. After a presentation on data and groundwater modelling (by Renier Besemer and Aiko Hensums of the province of Utrecht) and a presentation by the water information house (Janco van Gelderen) on groundwater monitoring series, we were given a tour of the Soesterberg air base. After the tour, the final word was given to Wouter Zomer (BZIM) about dike monitoring.
Thanks to the good introductions, interesting tours and the fantastic weather, a very successful day!
