This year, NethCold was celebrating their 50th anniversary. NethCold is the Dutch Commission On Large Dams. In July 2018, the first meeting for organising this festive day was planned and some rough ideas for making this a great day were set on paper. The 9th of May was this festive day, and we can look back at a beautiful day.

The day started with the opening by Cees Henk Oostinga, the President of NethCold. He gave an introduction of ICOLD, EUCold and the contributions of NethCold. Bas Jonkman, vice-president of NethCold told us about the challenges we are facing within the world of large dams. Marijn Meyer Ranneft gave a personal story about what triggers people to take part of this challenges. Our keynote speaker Jean-Jacques Fry, president of the EUCold who came here all the way from Lisbon, gave us a wider perspective about EUCold and ICOLD. The plenary sessions was closed with an inspiring story of Hans van Duivendijk. His contributions to NethCold are massive, and that can be seen from his story in which some beautiful experiences within the world of large dams were told.

After a coffee break together with RoyalHaskoningDHV, Rijkswaterstaat, Sweco, VanOord and Hydraphalt, the workshops started. The workshops were divided in three groups, each representing one of the technical committees NethCold holds: Dam Safety, Sediment and Levees. Students and experts in these fields were put together in groups, which led to lots of experience to cross over.

After the workshops, everybody came together to listen to the multidisciplinary student project which was done by students from different universities in the Netherlands. Rosanne Hakfoort and Han de Jong tols us about the the challenges in implementation of large water infrastructure. The day was ended with some drinks! Thank you all for coming and the contributions to make it a fruitful day!

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On Wednesday the 12th of December a group of enthusiastic Hydraulic Engineering students visited MTBS at their office located at the old port in Rotterdam. MTBS, Maritime & Transport Business Solutions, prepared an interesting real life port development case for us and after a short introduction about MTBS we spend the afternoon looking at the various subjects of this case. The afternoon ended with short presentations and a nice tour of the office. And of course some casual drinks, where the students were able to ask their remaining questions. We would like to thank Dirk and Ernst from MTBS for the fun and exciting afternoon!

It’s always exciting to start something new, just as starting as a freshman at the university with a new study: the master hydraulic engineering. To meet your fellow student the master kick off was organised. The day started with some useful information for your study, followed by four different excursions. The day ended with a nice barbeque behind the civil engineering building. Now everybody was ready to start with the masters!

Excursion Witteveen+Bos, Levvel & Deltares

Here we took a close look at the Delta Flume, equipped with the largest wave generator in the world. The 300-metre-long concrete flume hosts waves of up to 4.5 metres high.  Currently, the new level-blocks are tested there.

Excursion Rotterdamsebaan

With a part of the group we visited the Rotterdamsebaan at the Laan van Hoornwijck. After an interesting and quite technical presentation we got a guided tour around the site. We got to explore the inside of the first tunnel, which had just finished building, and we saw how the drilling machine was being installed for the start of the second tunnel. 

Excursion Maeslantkering

With most of the international students of Hydraulic Engineering, we went to visit the Maeslantkering; one of the showpieces of the Deltaplan. The excursion was introduced by an lecture of Mark Voorendt, afterwhich we went to the Maeslantkering. After the walk-around, we build our own flooddefefences as real hydraulic engineers.

Excursion HKV

At HKV we got an presentation about the BRIGAID project which supports innovations that reduce the impact of floods, drought and extreme weather. To actually witness one of these innovations we went to Flood Proof Holland where a prototype of a titling road flood defence was demonstrated.

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On the 22^nd of October the first Master Community of the year was organised in PSOR. The afternoon was hosted by Tjerk Zitman and was regarding the specialisation choice students have to make in their first year. Since hydraulic engineering covers a wide spectrum of subjects, it is important to inform students as early as possible on their options.There were several presentations from PHD candidates from our department by Frederik Vinke, Wouter Jan Klerk, Stuart Pearson, Victor Chavarrias and Frans van Grunsven. After these fun and insightful presentations we had some drinks together and the remaining questions were asked.

All in all, the afternoon was a success and we hope that it will help the new Master students in making a thoughtful choice of their specialisation. For questions about your specialisation choice you can contact us or someone at the department.

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During the Multiple Day Excursion 2018, 23 students went to Dublin! Our first host was the OPW, Office of Public Works who were working on flood defences along the River Dodder, a river straight through the city of Dublin. Pictures of high-water levels were shown and the difficulties during the construction of the flood defences were told. In the morning sun we walked along the river to see the flood defences. In the afternoon we went to Turlough Hill, a hydropower station a bit outside of Dublin. It consists of two lakes for which during high energy demand it works as a turbine, during low energy demand as a pump. It was cool! Afterwards we took a short walk in the beautiful nature of Glendalough. On Saturday we went to ARUP, who had an interesting case about how we as engineer can contribute to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations; very inspiring. We finished the weekend with a nice dinner with the group!

A big thanks to the organizing committee Loes, Roline, Mike & Quinten, and of course not to forget Marion & Matthieu, two professors who joined the trip and presented us with insightful and fun comments along the way!

Hope to see you next year!

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On the 22nd of November the first Hydraulic Dinner of the year took place in Cafe Rotterdam. At this evening 24 Hydraulic Engineering students had the opportunity to have dinner with Van Oord, Royal Haskoning, Boskalis and Witteveen + Bos. We started the evening with some casual drinks after which we were seated at the tables. Each company had their own table with students. After each course the group of students switched to another company. After four courses and four presentations of all the participating companies we concluded the evening with some drinks to talk about the successful evening full of opportunities for all the students and companies. It was a great evening at Cafe Rotterdam!

On Thursday the 24th of May our annual Symposium took place, which was themed “North Sea Power” this year.

The North Sea offers great possibilities in terms of offshore energy and floating cities (additional liveable area for the expanding human population). The question of the day: `how can we tackle challenges concerning marine ecology and efficiency to make optimal use of our North Sea for our future?’

The areas relatively close to shore, which are the first that will be utilized for offshore windfarms, will provide insufficient possibilities over the long haul to develop the required volumes of offshore wind energy. This makes it necessary to look for possibilities far out at sea.
The challenges and possibilities that arise with building far out in the North Sea have been addressed by the different speakers of the day.

The first moderator of the day was Prof. dr. ir. Mark van Koningsveld, our brand new professor of Ports and Waterways. With his experience in and knowledge of the Hydraulic field, his contribution to the Building with Nature working method and his eloquence he was able to ask some critical questions, point out the relevance of the different subjects and connect the presentations perfectly.

Marlies Langbroek has a lot of experience in stakeholder engagement and fulfills the role of team lead stakeholder management and communication for the Consortium North Sea Wind Power Hub. With her first presentation she opened everyone’s eyes by means of some interesting videos. Did you know the total time of human life on Earth equals 3 seconds when you equal the existence of the Earth with 24 hours? She took the students, and all the other interested people that visited the symposium, to a larger point of view. What are all the elements that pertain the initiation phase of the North Sea Wind Power Hub? The North Sea Wind Power Hub is intended to be built far offshore to collect all the energy from different wind farms of the different nations surrounding it and transfer the energy to mainland after (storage and) transition. What is the impact of such an island? What are the benefits? How much energy is it able to provide?
Marlies’ presentation was a perfect start of the day.

After Marlies, Rutger de Graaf – van Dinther took us to a smaller perspective. His idea of floating cities, at the moment realized as floating buildings, illustrated how many solutions can solve a big problem. His presentation also showed the difficulties of making a business case out of a totally new idea. It showed the audience how to start and how to convince the investers. His idea illustrated knowledge exchange and cooperation can result in a interdisciplinary solution for a large scale problem.

After this interesting presentation, Emiel van Druten gave us a presentation about the recently finished theses with reference to the possibilities of the North Sea. Aspects like how to store energy at an offshore island to deal with the intermittence of wind energy and what would be the best location for the island were discussed. Furthermore, the whole line of research that comes with these elements of the concept of the island were outlined. This illustrated the complexity of such a project in a Hydraulic Engineering point of view.

But it is not only the Hydraulic Engineering point of view that matters in projects of this size. Ecologist Mindert de Vries, our last speaker of the day, pointed out the effects of Hydraulic Engineering on the ecosystem. Not only did he mention the big ecosystem losses over the last decades and the importance of taking the impact on ecosystem into account in your design, he also made it specific. He showed the audience some easy habitat-creating solutions and some funny mistakes like shallow water that was meant for fish to breed, but that ended up as a bird-snackbar.

The day was concluded by a keen discussion led by Tjerk Zitman. Tjerk Zitman masters the art of being a erudite critic like no one else does. With his careful preparation he was able to ask the questions the whole panel wanted to answer eagerly. His thought-out questions inspired the audience to participate and this led to a dynamic discussion.

Then, it was time for a drink and a bite. The deputies of Fugro and Royal Haskoning DHV were waiting at the Lagerhuysch for a casual Company Fair.

We want to conclude with special thanks to all the speakers and both moderators that made our symposium an inspiring, dynamic, instructive day with great enthusiasm. We want thank the people of Fugro and Royal Haskoning DHV as well, for joining our first Company Fair.

We hope to see you all next year!

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While the summer was slowly arriving and our students (hopefully) passed their 3rd quarter exams, time came for the second Hydraulic Dinner of this year. It is for the first time in our existence that a second edition of this annual event was organised.

This second edition we tried to keep somewhat smaller and more personal than the one held last December. To do so the location for this edition was right in the heart of our historic hometown: Delft, at restaurant “De Waag”. From as early as 1539 the municipality officials used this monumental building as a place where goods and valuables were weighed and measured. For our dinner night however, this location was used to weigh and measure weather the companies and students could be of interest to one another.

For this second edition three companies accompanied us (all of them for the first time) being Arcadis, Fugro and AllSeas over an exquisite menu. Twenty-one of our finest Hydraulic Engineering students got together with twelve representatives of the above mentioned companies. All students passed a selection in order to be able to participate, which resulted in an extra-motivated crowd.

During the evening the students had the opportunity to pose all their questions to the companies. Furthermore, after every course the students switched tables until every student had the opportunity to sit with every company at least once and to share a course with their employees.

In between every course there was the opportunity for one of the companies to have a short presentation about itself to the students. The companies were given quite some freedom concerning the exact content of the presentation, resulting in a good diversity in the presentations. Various aspects of the companies were highlighted like the working environment, company activities, sustainability, ongoing projects and available opportunities for students.

After the desert was served it was time for the final presentation, held by Fugro. Before the evening would come to an end there was time for some tea and coffee just and some final conversations before the evening had come to a conclusion.

As the representatives of the companies wandered off towards their cars or trains, the students of the group decided it was not yet time to go home and to pay a visit to all time favourite café “de Oude Jan”. At this location, the last serious note disappeared while the beers kept coming until the early hours…

All in all we can look back at an incredibly successful second edition of this event that has been very beneficial to the students and (hopefully) also the companies. Many of the students really appreciated the diversity between the participating companies as it gave a good overview of some of the various possibilities with a master degree in Hydraulic Engineering. The evening was a huge success and as the organisation we can’t wait for next years’ event!!!