Theme: Millennium Development Goals

RUPPEL
Volume 25 - April 2015
Theme: Millennium Development Goals
Project in Kenya: a tour around the Mara River Basin
The Nile: water allocation and sports
Jakarta: flooding and drinking water
Colofon
From the editors
Volume 25, Number 1, April 2015
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
Sandra de Vries
Parvathy Chandrasekhar
Thibaut Visser
Nadja den Besten
Athina Pappa
Agnindhira Napitupulu
Odilia Schölvinck
Design:
Frans Willem Hamer
Thibaut Visser
Nadja den Besten
Agnindhira Napitupulu
Odilia Schölvinck
Athina Pappa
Whenever someone told you “I am doing a project with Peter-Jules”, you would always reply with “Oh, cool!”. And you
would always ask further with the same genuine enthusiasm
until you knew all the details.
His students had taken over his passion and fervour, not only
when talking about the project, but also when telling about
him. I cannot think of anyone that was so inspirational to students.
We have placed some of the warm hearted stories about Peter-Jules on the previous pages. Though only a few out of the
many, they show the love of him for us students and of us
students for him.
On behalf of the Druppel committee,
Frans Willem Hamer
The ‘Druppel’ is distributed to all members and relations of
the ‘Dispuut Watermanagement’, Faculty of Civil Engineering
and Geosciences
Contact:
Dispuut Watermanagement
Room 4.74
Stevinweg 1
2628 CN Delft
015-2784284
[email protected]
www.dispuutwatermanagement.nl
The committee, from left to right: Agnindhira, Athina, Sandra (photo), Odilia, Nadja, Frans Willem, Parvathy, Thibaut
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!
6
The connection is ours.
Contact is yours.
Entrepreneurship in a complex
environment but with overview,
involvement and understanding
of business. Result orientated:
everyone says it, only a few live
up to it. ARCADIS: infrastructure –
water – environment – buildings.
Independently but integral. We
shape society by being creative in
our solutions and decisive execution.
As an employee of ARCADIS you will
be an out of the box thinker. You are
part of a network that exists out of
business professionals. Organized
around clients who directly will
benefit from our knowledge and
experience.
We bring ideas to life.
Are you involved?
Imagine the result
When it comes to harbors, hydraulic engineering, water supply, waterlogging, water deficit, water
quality, safety and fairway, the division Water and Environment operates. A secure life in a delta by
a climate-resistant, durable and flexible water system. We connect water to regional development,
environment and economy. We create short-term solutions that result in perspectives for the long
term. The Netherlands, water country par excellence.
Independent, proactive and
entrepreneurial professionals
watermanagement
Are you curious about the possibilities
in the field of water management at
ARCADIS? Visit our website:
www.werkenbijarcadis.nl. Here you will
find our current (internship/graduation)
vacancies and you will find additional
information about working at ARCADIS,
movies of our colleagues as well as a list
of upcoming events.
Are you curious of learning more about
our professional vacancies please contact
Ms. Silke Wekema, recruiter, via
+31 6 2706 0697 or Mr. Thijs Pruijssers,
campus recruiter, via +31 6 2706 0616, if
you want to learn more about (graduation)
internship projects at ARCADIS.
Will you take the first step?
Content
A word
From the board p6
A view from Maurits Ertsen in the Column p7
Symposium 2015: Water
as a Weapon p34
An Interview with our brand new head of the Department
Prof. Dr. Luuk Rietveld p40
An overview of Water
related Movies p48
A Druppel Recipe: Anaerobic
egg p50
The Millennium Development Goals
Water supply and Sanitation p14
Socio-hydrology for Sustainable Development p15
Challenges for AIAS p16
From Aid to Trade p16
Improved water and sanitation Vietnam p17
Water and Sanitation South Africa p19
Ghana-Netherlands WASH programme p20
Drinking with the Wind & Sun p21
Deficits of the MDGs
A lack of leadership p22
Cultural differences p23
Some things to think about... p24
In Depth
Jakarta,Drinking Water p29 & Flooding p32
Water World, water management around the globe p30
Greece, olive mill wastewater p33
Lab-setup, Shit-eating worms p36
Thesis, Marlies visiting the three countries of the Eastern Nile
river basin p37
Sports, Kayaking on the wild White Nile p38
Kenya, A tour around the Mara Basin p44
9
From the Board
We were all shocked by the passing of Peter-Jules van Overloop. All of us who had contact with him remember him as an
enthusiastic, cheerful and esteemed lecturer and mentor. This
memory will live on with and through us even now that he is
not longer with us.
Apart from this sad news we also had a lot of happy moments
this academic year. The board change was one of them. We
had to say goodbye to Thibaut, Janneke and Louise, who contributed a lot of their time, energy and creativity to the board
and hence in the Dispuut. We thank all of them for a fun time
and their effort. Replacing them as the new board members
are Alexandra, Joost and Bart, who are now contributing their
time to the board.
Thanks to the symposium committee, we accomplished a successful symposium in 2015. This symposium, themed ‘water as
a weapon’, was one of a kind. Because it was connected to
the ‘vakantie-cursus’ for the first time, and as there was little
time to prepare, it was quite a challenge for all the people involved. On top of that, the symposium committee introduced
a new idea in combination with the symposium: speed dating
between students and companies. This offered great opportunities for students to reach out to companies, and the other
way around. We all experienced a wonderful day.
Besides the symposium committee, all the other committees
are busy as usual. The activity committee organised a night of
bowling in December last year, and we look forward to new
and surprising activities this year.
The MDE committee is planning the summer trip to England.
Do not hesitate, join us and it will be a lot of fun.
The Fitterij committee is also doing their best to organise a
great day. This year the Fitterij will be our main activity in the
Lustrum week. YES! It is Lustrum again. The Dispuut Watermanagement already exists for 35 years. Let’s celebrate this
together! We will keep you up to date with our plans.
Last but not least, our Druppel committee is doing a great job
like always.They put a lot of energy and time in the publication
of the Druppel. Lean back, take your time, and be entertained.
the 56th board
Graduates list November 2014 - March 2015
Sanitary Engineering
Peter Wessels
A novel approach to Anaerobic Groundwater Treatment: Mitigating the effect of methane on the biological stability
of drinking water
Gerben Tommassen
On the correlation between turbidity, conductivity and COD
Water Resources Management
10
Rutger Hofste
Comparative Analysis Among Near – Operational Evapotranspiration
Emma Aalbers
Evaporation in conceptual rainfall-runoff models – Testing model realism using remotely sensed evaporation
Onno Ebbens
Parameter estimation in groundwater flow models with moments of the impulse response function
Ioanna Livaniou
Evaluating Asset Management Strategies of Water Cycle Systems under Different Socio-Technical Contexts
Pradeep Rathore
Error analysis of TRMM, WFD and APHRODITE datasets using Triple Collocation
Dennis Kuijk
The water balance and climate change in Lelystad.
Jelmar Schellingerhout
On-line parameter updating as an optimisation tool for Decision Support Systems
Maikel Votel
Controlling minimum groundwater levels in urban areas; Evaluation of groundwater recharge system in Dordrecht.
Tim Hessels
Comparison and validation of several Open Access Remotely Sensed Rainfall. Products for the Nile Basin.
The “Non-Technical”
Column
“The humanities should constitute the core of any university worth the name” (Terry Eagleton)
My first job at Delft University of Technology was in the Department of Technology and
Society. The Department’s Dutch name was much more revealing about the status of social
sciences and humanities at the university; literally translated it was named “Philosophy and
Non-Technical Societal Sciences”. As such, the name reflected at least two things: 1) the philosophy group had been able to give itself a special position and 2) something like the “non-technical” could be used as a concept. Concerning 1), philosophy has usually been defined as core
of every university – but please consider that for a long time, before the many specializations
we have now, philosophy was considered a much broader field.
It is 2), however, that is more interesting for now. Using something like a negative to define
a group does not necessarily suggest that this group is taken very seriously. It sounds like a
group just doing some leftovers from the technical sciences. The Department of T&S is long
gone, with many of its (strongest) groups doing well in the Department of Technology, Policy
and Management. In daily life, the marginal position of the social sciences and humanities in
Delft education yields its results.
Even when I knew about the history of the fields in Delft, its students have been able to
surprise me on what they know about “the social” or the “non-technical”, let alone how they
can articulate their ideas about it. Once, I asked students in class what a certain paper they
had to read was all about. After some discussions, many answered that the text was about how
important the social aspects were when studying technical issues. I was a little disappointed, to
be honest, as just repeating the title of the paper would have been a more accurate answer – it
would have been something like “The pivotal role of canal operators in irrigation schemes: The
case of the canalero” (Van der Zaag and Rap 2012).
What does this example suggest? I think I can argue that Delft students are usually aware of
the existence of the “other” side of academics, that students appreciate the potential value of
this other side for engineering, but that they have a hard time in going beyond this awareness.
I would not like to suggest that we should train our engineers and scientists to become experts in social sciences and humanities, but it would already be a start if they would know the
difference between these two groups in the “non-technical” domain. The main reason for me,
however, to argue that offering more options for including disciplines like history, philosophy,
psychology and sociology in the engineering programs is beneficial, is that the technical-social
divide is not terribly interesting and in theoretical terms actually highly problematic.
Take a recent initiative in the hydrological community to study “socio-hydrology”, in itself
a recognition of the importance of human actions for hydrological processes. It brings social
relations on board as well, as those influence what type of hydrological interventions are
realized. Now, laudable as including human agency when studying processes that were clearly
changed by that agency may be, let’s think about the word “socio-hydrology” a little more.
Does the word not imply – as do socionatural, sociotechnical and other colleagues – that the
“social” and the “technical” (and the “natural”) are (still) distinguishable categories that are to
be linked? This might just be playing with words, but I see no need for socio-anythings once we
have established that there is not theoretical distinction between social and technical.
There are obviously may claims about better technology, improved nature, desired environments, and natural processes. A closer look, however, suggests that any claim about technology is in the realm of social relations between agents – where the shape of the technology
obviously matters, but cannot be isolated from other factors. That does not make hydrology,
biology, chemistry or fluid mechanics suddenly a social or political science, but it does suggest
that their findings cannot simply be used to determine “the technical”. Everything is technical,
as much as everything is social – or natural. Socio-hydrology is just hydrology…
Author:
Maurits Ertsen
11
Millennium
Development
Goals
In 2000 the great leaders of the world made promising
agreements in the Millennium Declaration related to the environment and welfare: The United Nations Member States
unanimously agreed to help the poorest in the world to live
a better life by the year 2015. To achieve this a set of timebound goals and targets were made: The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Goals that are in our field of study
related to water and sanitation, but also focusing on multiple
other issues. Every year the Secretary General reports about
the progress in achieving the MDGs. He tries to identify
which areas need extra effort.
Due to the strong economic progress in China and India the
global poverty target for example is met. However, if we look
from a more regional perspective the picture looks quite different: Sub-Saharan Africa will not meet the poverty target
until 2147. Other global problems are prevailing as well, such
as rapid deforestation, increasing water scarcity, rising HIV
prevalence and youth unemployment. In September 2013 a
special event was organized to renew the commitment of the
world leaders to achieve the goals. Each country is responsible for their own progress on the MDGs, however they are
able to find (financial) support from a set of parties including
the World Bank, IMF, micro-finances , Bilateral donors, several
UN departments and private parties.
At the end of this year the deadline of the MDGs will be
reached, so no better time for us to research them. Can the
goals be achieved in time? In this Druppel we will try to address the MDGs in an interdisciplinary approach to have a
better understanding of their progress and the failures. In
several case studies we can see how the MDGs are taken in
practice in the field, a leadership expert will share his view
on the importance of leadership in realizing the goals, some
cultural factors are highlighted that might form a problem for
reaching the targets and, finally, a critical review is made.
Throughout the edition it can be seen that water managers
can play an important factor in achieving the MDGs. And maybe you can contribute yourself to reach the aimed targets in a
project, there is still almost a year still to go! S
12
Active students working
to achieve the MDGs
13
Millennium
Development
Goals
Author:
Gertjan Medema
Professor in
Water and Health
Chief Science
Officer at KWR
Water Cycle Research Institute
14
2015: did we score the Millennium Development Goals on
water supply and sanitation?
In September 2000, world leaders adopted the United Nations
Millennium Declaration, committing the nations of the world
to reduce extreme poverty.They set out a series of targets for
2015, the Millennium Development Goals. Lack of safe water,
sanitation and hygiene was identified as one of the world’s
most urgent issues. Water-related improvements are crucial in
improving the world health status, reducing preventable child
mortality, in a sustainable way. In addition, these improvements
induce multiple social and economic benefits, adding importantly to enhanced well-being. The Millennium Development
Goal 7 (MDG7) was to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. These targets were set with the data of 1990, where 76%
of the world population was using an improved drinking water
source and 49% had access to an improved sanitation facility.
So the target was that by 2015 88% of the world population
had access to an improved drinking water source and 75% to
an improved sanitation facility. These were ambitious goals, especially considering that in the same time, the world received
2 billion new inhabitants (from 5.3 to 7.3 billion).
What has been accomplished since 2000? The UN progress
monitoring of the MDG indicate that the world reached the
MDG for drinking water sources already in 2010. Over 2.3
billion people have gained access to an improved drinking water source between 1990 and 2012, out of which 1.6 billion
received piped water supply on the premises. A tremendous
achievement, but remember this still leaves 0.7 billion people (1 in 10) relying on unsafe sources, drinking straight from
rivers or streams, or unprotected wells or springs. Should we
read this as if 6.6 billion people now have access to safe drinking water? No, to safer drinking water. Of the improved sources, still around 15% is contaminated with faecal indicator bacteria and will give rise to enteric diseases. It is also increasingly
recognized that monitoring of the presence of improved water
supply facilities is not enough. If the facilities are not properly
operated and maintained, people will have or divert to unsafe
sources again. Also, the monitoring has focused on households,
which is logical as first step, but other settings, such as schools,
hospitals and refugee camps should be included.
The world remains off track to meet the MDG sanitation target of 75% and if current trends continue, is set to miss the
target by more than half a billion people. Since 1990, almost 2
billion people have gained access to an improved sanitation facility. Again, a tremendous achievement. The greatest progress
has been made in Eastern Asia, where sanitation coverage has
increased from 27% in 1990 to 67% in 2011. This amounts to
more than 626 million people gaining access to improved sanitation facilities over a 21-year period. However, current trends
show sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia still struggle with
low sanitation coverage. In sub-Saharan Africa, 44 per cent of
the population uses either shared or unimproved facilities, and
an estimated 26 per cent practices open defecation while in
Southern Asia, the proportion of the population using shared
or unimproved facilities has declined to 18 per cent but open
defecation remains the highest of any region (39 per cent). Despite these achievements, the United Nations estimates that
there are 2.5 billion people (still 1 in 3 people!) who still do
not use an improved sanitation facility and a little over 1 billion
(1 in 7) practicing open defecation. “Almost 2,000 children die
every day from preventable diarrhoeal diseases. Poor sanita-
tion and water supply result in economic losses estimated at
$260 billion annually in developing countries”. Jan Eliasson, UN
Deputy Secretary General, on adoption 24 July 2013 of UN
General Assembly Resolution ‘Water for All’.
So what’s next? Building upon the progress of the existing
MDGs for water supply and sanitation, the aim of a global
goal on water is to address “unfinished business” and encourage governments to adopt ambitious targets for improving
WASH service levels in order to reduce the global burden
of WASH-related diseases, to improve productivity and economic growth, and to reduce inequalities between population
groups. Given the limited progress with improving sanitation
for the world population, the emphasis for the “next round”
is more on improving sanitation, particularly on ending open
defecation. Doing nothing is costly. Every US $1 spent on sanitation brings a $5.50 return by keeping people healthy and
productive. The End Open Defecation Campaign, launched by
UN in 2014, aims to help end the practice of open defecation
and improve access to toilets and latrines for the 2.5 billion
people without basic level sanitation. The campaign, which will
run to the end of 2015, aims to break the silence - the silence
on talking about open defecation and the silence on the deaths
and diseases, particularly among children, that have occurred a
result of open defecation practices and lack of decent toilets
or latrines.
In July 2014, new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
were proposed entitled “Ensure availability and sustainable
management of water and sanitation for all”. The Sustainable
Development Goals related to WASH are:
6.1 by 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe
and affordable drinking water for all;
6.2 by 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all, and end open defecation, paying
special attention to the needs of women and girls and
those in vulnerable situations;
6.a by 2030, expand international cooperation and capacity-building support to developing countries in water and
sanitation related activities and programmes, including
water harvesting, desalination, water efficiency, wastewater treatment, recycling and reuse technologies;
6.b support and strengthen the participation of local communities for improving water and sanitation management.
Some of the implementation challenges that have been generally recognized include the need for increased and locally
appropriate WASH financing, institutional capacity, political
support and management of inconsistencies in the enforcement of legislation. There is a need to scale up appropriate
technologies and improve capacity to deal with inequalities
and tackle the problems of open defecation, WASH in schools
and health centres.
So, to the new generation of water and sanitation engineers:
if you want to make a difference in the world, if you recognize the solution to these challenges requires your technical
knowledge and skills, but also that you interact with people
with skills in financing and building support for new solutions
from politics, institutions and citizens, there are some big challenges here for you! S
Socio-hydrology for Sustainable Development
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are to be replaced by
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a September 2015
United Nations gathering of world leaders in New York. MDGs
have been a mixed success, most successful being in public
health and reduction of proportion of people who are hungry.
Yet the 8 MDGs that comprised a total of 18 targets are supposed to be replaced by 17 SDGs and 169 targets! So what are
these SDGs?
The Rio+20 Conference and its document “The Future We
Want” set out the agenda to shape the next 15 years of UN
development agenda.The open working group, which comprises
of representatives from member states, set out with this task,
has now proposed a list of goals and constituting targets. Most
likely these are to be called “Sustainable Development Goals.” ,
Given the momentum provided by the MDGs, the goals set out
by the MDGs, and carried over by the SDGs, are likely to be
covered at an even faster pace. However the number of goals,
at least the targets may need to be reduced to a manageable
number, especially since it is immensely expensive to measure
any of the targets. Tremendous uncertainties lie in valuing and
assessing progress towards these goals. One way, and it appears
to be the most popular, is to identify those that either are most
likely to be achieved or are to be most impactful. Since financing
of these goals is yet another challenge, the latter of the two may
most likely be more prudent. One expectation is of up to $2.5
trillion of international aid over the 15 years period till 2030.
Even $1 trillion of private investment waits to be unlocked
(with interest from asset managers controlling up to $45 trillion of capital worldwide) if we can come up with better ways
to value interventions and measure our progress in achieving
sustainable development goals. After all, both private investors
and tax payers would demand most bang for their buck given
the recent onslaught of the global economic crisis.
Another way to keep SDGs manageable may be to indentify
themes that crosscut many of the goals. People are central to
these goals and many of these goals are intertwined by water. The new field of Socio-hydrology offers us with a positive
framework to view human and water as a coupled system, allowing us to formalize connections between various goals. One
major advantage of such a formal framework is a better and
more precise valuation of impacts and progress towards the
development goals. Never before have technical, more formal,
emphasis on describing the two-way feedbacks been made in
collaboration (note, not in competition!) with non-formal studies of human systems interacting with nature.
Consider marginal farmers or small holders, who own less
than 2 ha of land. These farmers are crucial for food security in
developing countries. A fact that nearly 80% of Indian farmers
are smallholders, who merely own a third of total farmlands
and belong to the poorest quartile, but produce nearly 40% of
country’s food grains is mindboggling . The socio-hydrology of a
smallholder, that studies it as a coupled system comprising of local hydrologic system, ecology, soil system, livestock and agriculture and alternate sources of income, can simultaneously assess
the feedbacks between various goals such as sustainable water
management, poverty, food security, biodiversity loss, impact of
feed trade and technological innovation. Any intervention, for
example increasing the minimum wage, can be valued in how it
propagates through the system and simultaneously affect food
and water security, sustainable water resource management,
poverty and reduction of people who are hungry.
The water-food-energy-ecology nexus at basin scale can also
be understood by the socio-hydrological framework. Technology mediated growth, say for example agricultural production
using fertilizers and hybrid seeds can accelerate growth but at
the cost of degrading water quality and availability. Naturally
this imposes even more pressure on the carrying capacity to
sustain growth in agricultural production. How can we then sustain our growing population? Recent socio-hydrological studies
have highlighted that it is our awareness of environmental degradation that sometimes aids us in breaking the vicious cycle of
growth and environmental degradation. A sustainable future, a
future that we all want, is perhaps a delicate balance between
technological innovation and environmental awareness. By understanding the complex socio-hydrological dynamics and the
associated feedbacks between water-food-energy-ecology dimensions, we can now assess more accurately how technology,
environmental degradation, political economy and food security
are interlinked.
Global technological and economic integration has advanced to
a point that “de-globalization” appears to be implausible. On
the contrary, trade liberalization is one of the SDGs and in fact
it is one of the most impactful. Copenhagen consensus center
estimates that €1 spent on trade liberalization can unleash a
benefit of up to €2,011 mostly to developing countries2. For
example, agriculture accounts for 10% of global trade yet accounts for nearly 2/3 of costs associated with trade barriers,
such as export bans on food and state sponsored agricultural
policies in developing countries .The concept of water footprint
can help assess part of these benefits since distorted policies of
national governments can adversely affect sustainable development. Population, affluence and global political economy mostly
drive trade patterns, often at the cost of local water and food
security. With agricultural trade, we virtually trade in water as
well, up to 2 x 1012 m3/year globally10! Land and water resource grabbing by relatively rich but resource scarce countries
in resource rich developing countries is yet another example
of how adverse impacts of growth on water resources are
being exported elsewhere . Population and economic growth
also changes land cover patterns and water resource availability, which affects physical redistribution of water through the
hydrological cycle. Consequences of changing trade patterns,
demography and affluence thus have an important bearing on
water and food security and local sustainability and vice versa .
Water Footprint Assessment is yet another socio-hydrological
analytical framework that brings out the interconnectedness
between various SDG goals and provides a holistic framework
to simultaneously measure progress in those goals.
The adoption of Sustainable Development Goals will be a great
step forward in the global development agenda. However, the
path to implementing SDGs will not be an easy one. Uncertainty in valuation and measurement of any progress will be abound.
While it is convenient to think of various goals as independent
ones, they are surprisingly interconnected through water. Socio-hydrology offers a wonderful opportunity to frame the web
of interconnectedness in a scientifically coherent manner. Why
not exploit it and contribute to the emerging science for global
development! S
Millennium
Development
Goals
Author:
Saket Pande
15
Millennium
Development
Goals
Author:
Teus Bronius
Company:
Waternet
Challenges for AIAS in the field
In Mozambique approximately 65% (5.1 million people) of the
people living in an urban area do not have access to the most
basic forms of sanitation. It is an enormous challenge to improve the absence of sanitation. The difficulties are in the lack
of coordination between the different stakeholders, the maintenance of the existing infrastructure, lack of knowledge and
experience and finally problems due to multicultural customs
and taboos.
Currently AIAS is working on project PO15 financed by the
Dutch embassy in Mozambique to prevent water transmitted
diseases, improve the quality of life of the people and avoid
environmental damage (part of MDG 7). In the project a huge
part of the population of fifteen cities will gain access to better
quality drinking water and safer sanitation during a period of
three years.
To bring the project to a success, several sanitation groups
were founded consisting of a variety of different stakeholders.
These include the local government, public works, the healthcare, schools, professionals from the sector, and also civil so-
ciety as churches, mosques and other societies. The sanitation
groups are trained in a variety of ways tailored to their regional differences, such as the reuse of greywater. They also learn
to set up publicity campaigns on sanitation and hygiene. For
every project these campaigns are of high importance to make
people aware of the significance of hygiene.
The continuity of the knowledge exchange is assured by regular feedback sessions between sanitation groups and the AIAS.
Furthermore, the project places different toilets in schools,
markets and bus stations. The placement of the toilets is a
training for the local sanitation groups, where they learn how
to coordinate and act as a supervisor to the contractor and
to communicate to the local institutions and population. Also,
a curriculum for schools is set up for children’s understanding
of sanitation and personal hygiene.
Different employees of AIAS are involved in these projects,
with the aim that they can implement the procedure as well in
the other 135 cities in Mozambique. S
From aid to trade: implications for international water
development
Author:
Machteld Galema
www.ondernemeninontwikkelingslanden.nl
1
Medefinancieringsstelsel 2010-2015 (MFS II)
Nieuwe agenda voor
hulp, handel en investeringen
2
16
In the current water development agenda of the central government of the Netherlands benefits for the Dutch water sector are part of the required achievements.That means that the
long term aid policy of financing Dutch NGOs1 to execute development programmes and projects in developing countries
belongs to the past. As of 2015 the development aid financed
by the Dutch government2 is project based and aimed at export and promotion of trade for Dutch products and services.
This new approach implies a new form of cooperation, both
inside the Netherlands, as well as in the partner countries.
Recipients of ODA subsidies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs entail almost 70 NGOs. Being left without fixed financing,
most NGOs are transformed in entities specialized in proposal writing and financial engineering, i.e. experts in the field of
finding project and programme budgets. One of the main advantages is that projects are likely to become more result oriented since every single project is evaluated and assessed on
an individual basis as opposed to before when organisations
rather than projects were financed. A large disadvantage is
the fact that organisations are busier with project and budget
management than with the actual projects, the local beneficiaries, and knowledge development itself – mostly individually and
therefore perhaps less efficient.
The shift of focus from aid to trade also brings along significant opportunities. Due to the fact that NGOs – organisations
with considerable insight in country specific developments,
local networks, and developing markets – are looking for new
partnerships, Dutch companies that want to conquer international markets can use them as entry to markets. Since last
year the Netherlands Water Partnership – being the public
private network organization of the Dutch water sector – is
involved in this new form of international development cooperation. NGOs hesitant? Companies unwilling? Luckily not all!
Companies with international ambitions such as Susteq and
Royal Eijkelkamp find their way to NGOs such as Aqua for All
and SNV and vice versa.
NGOs that are involved in water supply and sanitation for the
so-called bottom of the pyramid – the poorest of the poor
– indicate that water development cooperation is heading towards business development and therefore cannot reach the
poor. Advocates underline that business development in developing countries with assistance of and benefit for the Dutch
private sector will trickle down and ultimately benefit these
poor.
I see opportunity in the aid and trade policy, not only because
Dutch businesses can assist local private sector development
together with NGOs and thereby ensure sustainable development with respect for the environment, but also will Dutch
company employees become aware of the development context and the need for environmentally friendly production
methods and consuming behavior, both locally and in the
Netherlands. S
Towards improved water and sanitation (services) in
Vietnam
In July 2014 I moved to Ho Chi Minh City for a 2 year assignment for Vitens Evides International (VEI) within the Young
Expert Program of NWP. Vietnam had already achieved Millennium Development Goal 7c regarding access both to safe
water and to sanitation by 20121. Access to “improved water
sources” rose from 62% in 1990 to 95% in 2012, while access
to “improved sanitation sources” rose from 39% to 79%. This
reflects the stunning technological and economic progress recently realized in Vietnam, a country that was known to be
among the world’s poorest regions around 1990. There are
still major challenges to be addressed however, as the development of specific regions such as the Northern and Central
Highlands and Mekong Delta lag behind.
I was able to see this for myself during a beautiful cycling trip
with my visiting family through the Mekong Delta this past
Christmas holiday. After a first shaky sanitary stop hovering
above the river, it soon became a game to shoot the best picture of a “toilet with a view”. It directly confronts us with the
question: what is really an “improved sanitation facility”? In the
Mekong Delta many people still wash their clothes (and sometimes themselves) in the same river that serves as a sewer for
Millennium
Development
Goals
their neighbours. A hanging toilet is not an improved facility.
On the other hand, if a toilet is strategically located above
the farm’s fish pond, one wonders if the Vietnamese may actually have succeeded in closing the sanitary cycle better than
the Dutch with our complex system of sewers, rising mains
and treatment plants. The improved sanitation facility is mainly
about what happens after the sanitary stop.
When it comes to water supply, providing a water connection
is not enough. Does the connection actually provide water (7
days a week)? Is that water safe? Is it affordable? Is the responsible drinking water utility sustainably managed and financially
stable? VEI focuses on strengthening partner water utilities
to address these issues. e.g. better maintenance management,
increasing energy efficiency, reduction of non revenue water
(water losses), as well as increasing coverage to those not yet
connected to piped water supply. In this regard I very much applaud the development that the new SDG “Safe Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene” will contain the objective “Safely
Managed Services”. It is the only way to achieve sustainable
universal access to safe drinking water facilities.S
Author:
Adriaan
Ruijmschoot
Company:
VIE-international
YEP-Water
Vietnam factsheet
WHO/UNICEF, 2014
www.wssinfo.org
1
17
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global water challenges
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n Connecting water infrastructure needs
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Water Supply and Sanitation in South Africa
One of South Africa’s greatest challenges is poverty alleviation,
which is of course also coupled to socio-economic inequality.
To put these inequalities into perspective South Africa, with a
GINI coefficient around 0.65, is one of the most unequal societies in the world (World Bank, 2011). GINI coefficients are
used to measure the gap between rich and poor (0 = perfect
equality and 1 = complete inequality) and in comparison the
Netherlands has a coefficient around 0.289. The Millennium
Development Goals (MDG) are aimed at trying to alleviate
extreme poverty and inequality worldwide, through eight main
goals. Given the poverty issues in South Africa, the MDG’s
were used as a benchmark for measuring progress towards
poverty alleviation and equitable development. With regards
to water, key facets of poverty alleviation include providing all
people with access to adequate drinking water and sanitation.
As a part of the government’s MDG programme, South Africa
set ambitious targets for drinking water supply and sanitation,
which in fact exceeded the MDG requirements – see Table 1.
The challenges listed above endanger the progress made towards providing all South Africans with access to clean drinking water and improved sanitation. Furthermore, the statistics
used by the South African government (Table 1) are slightly
misleading because they do not account for system reliability.
The MDG’s and other monitoring programmes that use basic
and crude indicators to judge service provision can be dangerous because they do not tell the full story, but they still serve
some purpose if they promote action from governments.
Provision of water and sanitation is also a complex political
issue, with the South African government promising impoverished communities free basic services. The expectation has
developed that the government will provide a free house with
water connection and waterbourne sanitation (flush toilet) to
impoverished citizens – especially those residing in informal
settlements (shack/slum dwellers). Given the current backlog
of housing, it will take decades to provide free government
housing to all informal settlements across South Africa. Critics
Millennium
Development
Goals
Author:
Struan Robertson
Table 1:Water and sanitation goals in South Africa (MDG country report, 2013)
Issue
MDG
South African
Goal
1996
baseline
2011
progress
Conclusion
Drinking Water Supply Access
within 200m of house
Halve the proportion of
people without access
100% access
76.6%
90.8%
MDG met; but not country
goal
Access to Improved sanitation
(minimum VIP toilet)
Halve the proportion of
people without access
100% access
49.3%
66.5%
MDG likely to be met; but
not country goal
Table 1 shows that the government has made commendable
progress towards providing the fundamental basics of water
and sanitation supply, however a significant amount of work is
still required especially with regard to sanitation.
These basic water supply and sanitation statistics certainly do
not paint the full water picture. South Africa faces many water
related challenges, including:
• Effluent quality failures at the majority of wastewater treatment plants
• Extreme water pollution (faecal contamination) in surface
water around impoverished neighbourhoods
• Drinking water quality failures in small towns and rural
areas
• Periodic water supply system failures in sections of large
cities
• Acid mine contamination of surface waters in central
South Africa
• Ageing water supply and wastewater infrastructure
coupled with extreme budget constraints, resulting in
infrastructure failures
• A lack of water engineers in the public service – from national government departments down to municipal water
supply and sanitation divisions.
have argued that a better solution would have been to provide more basic services (such as of a water connection and a
VIP (ventilated improved pit latrine toilet) to plots and allow
people to construct their own house on the plot – in this way
state funds would go further and services could be provided
to more people in a shorter period of time.
Given the shear scale of South Africa’s water issues, it will require a co-ordinated effort to find solutions. Water engineers
are of course at the front line of trying to develop, maintain
and operate critical water and sanitation systems – we have
the responsibility to try to ensure innovative and cost-effective solutions are implemented in order to ensure limited state
funds can go further. We cannot lose sight of the huge impact
that water and sanitation provision has on the livelihoods of
impoverished communities. Working as an engineer in South
Africa or any other developing country is of course challenging
and often frustrating due to the slow pace of progress, but on
the other hand knowing the impact that successful projects
bring is also highly rewarding. Hopefully 100% access to clean
water and decent sanitation in South Africa can be achieved in
the near future, however care also needs to be taken to ensure
that gains towards this goal are not eroded by infrastructure
failures. S
19
Millennium
Development
Goals
Author:
Ir. J.C. Schut
Branch Manager
Ghana Office
Witteveen+Bos
jochem.schut@
witteveenbos.com
20
Ghana-Netherlands WASH Programme
Early 2014, the Technical Assistance assignment for the Ghana-Netherlands
WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene)
programme (GNWP) was awarded to
a consortium of Witteveen+Bos (lead),
Simavi and Berenschot. The GNWP
programme is funded by both the Dutch
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Government of Ghana, in support of the Millennium Development Goals, and aims
for more public and private collaboration in the WASH sector. A great opportunity for Dutch engineers, management
consultants and NGO staff to work
jointly, and to learn from each other and
from our Ghanaian counterparts.
As part of the assignment, WASH master plans were prepared for, and in collaboration with, five municipalities in
Accra and Cape Coast and Elmina. The
master plans define the WASH vision
for 2020 and explore which investments
(and projects) are needed. An interesting challenge, as municipalities were not
used to thinking ‘far ahead’; each year
they have to wait a long time for their
small operational budget. Also within the
consortium we learned a lot. While engineers tend to see everything as a project, management consultants look at it
like a process - we could add up these
experiences.
For sanitation MDG, goals are not on
target and it shows. In some of the
municipalities the access to improved
sanitation is deplorable and actions to
decrease open defecation are being
implemented (such as media campaigns
to change behaviour). Daily, approx. 80
septic tank emptiers dump their load
at the infamous Lavender Hill in Accra,
flowing into the sea untreated. Once
beautiful sandy beaches are polluted and
the (surf worthy) waves carry plastic
bags. Tourists (and expats) have to travel far outside Accra to enjoy the beach
(but once you’re there it is awesome).
In this ‘challenging’ environment, we are
lucky to execute concrete projects and
change processes - difficult as they are;
providing WASH facilities and education in 100 schools, building capacity of
municipal staff in the waste domain (for
example contract management for their
private waste operators) and developing
water supply, drainage and sanitation infrastructure works.
The consortium established an office in
Accra as a home base for the activities,
with good Ghanaian engineers and staff.
But don’t expect the challenges to end
there. Opening a bank account took us
four months, having access to internet
banking took another three. as you can
imagine, working in the WASH sector in
Ghana is not an easy task. Luckily, it is
rewarding and fun! As an engineer for
Witteveen+Bos, I welcome student’s
ambitions to work in Africa and to be
part of this growing continent. Working
at our company, being a water trainee
or participate in the YEP programme are
all possibilities to make this dream come
true. S
You can find additional information on the
GNWP project on our website: http://www.
gnwp.nl/
Drinking with the Wind & Sun
In the past 7 years, a number of projects were performed with
the combination of reverse osmosis (RO) and sustainable energy.The combination of RO with a windmill was called “Drinking
with the Wind” while the combination of RO with PV-panels
was called “Drinking with the Sun”.The aim was always to build
prototypes of these installations and operate them in arid areas
around the world. All the projects were MSc-thesis projects.
The first prototype was a windmill and RO combination for
the desalination of seawater and we tested it in Curacao. The
goal was to design a stand-alone windmill driven RO-system,
so there was no backup of the grid. The power fluctuation of
the windmill was the challenge with a system like this. In the
Curacao case we designed the RO in a way that it is able to
produce more water (higher fluxes) at increasing wind speeds.
This is challenging because the water quality of the permeate is
also depending on the flux.
The next prototype was a RO installation that is combined
with PV-solar panels. The problem with this combination was
the limited operation hours, with only 8-10 hours in day time.
Presence of clouds are also interfering the proper operation of
the RO-installation. We solved this problem by adding a short
term buffer to the system. With super-capacitors we were able
to operate the RO smoothly. But energy storage for the night
was not economically feasible so the RO could not run 24
hours a day.
Two sustainable energy technology (SET) students, Sid Vollebregt and Reinoud Feenstra, came with an innovative idea to
deal with the night-storage problem. They built a pilot in Bali
(Indonesia) and were able, after several months of failures, to
operate the RO 24 hours continuously during one month.They
received many prizes for their design and they founded a company in Yes!Delft as a medium to bring their design to the market. They are building and commissioning their first full scale
plant at the moment.
Now, we are working on a new prototype for the RO and
windmill combination. The most important drawbacks of the
previous prototypes were the slow turning multi-blade windmills. The quality of these windmills was not very reliable and
we wanted to scale the concept to larger and modern windmills. Even though modern windmill provides lower torque, but
the blades run faster. On the other hand, the energy cannot be
transferred from the gondola to ground level with a shaft. So
Millennium
Development
Goals
Author:
Bas Heijman
the next prototype is a modern windmill equipped with a hydraulic system (oil) to transfer the energy to ground level. The
hydraulic system will drive the high pressure pump of the RO
and produce fresh water from seawater.
The new prototype will be tested on the isle of Jonny Cay
close to San Andres in the Caribbean (see picture below). We
wanted to keep the RO running as constant as possible, so
the windmill we use is oversized: it produces enough energy
already at a wind speed of 5 m/s. At wind speed above 5 m/s
the excess on energy will be transferred to electrical energy.
The project is also aiming at education: The installation can be
visited by tourists in the island and the concept is going to be
explained by posters and a movie. The windmill and RO combination will provide the island enough water and electricity to
become independent of San Andres. The island itself is part of
a national reserve.
The project will run during the coming three years and student can go to the installation for an internship or for their
MSc-thesis. S
21
Critical
notes
Deficits of the MDGs
Despite the great effort by many initiatives and projects all over the world, more than half of the millennium goals have not been
reached yet. In this edition of the Druppel we have reviewed different aspects the Millennium Development Goals, both its successes and its failures. In this section, the MDGs will be critically assessed.What can be the reasons for the failures: bad leadership,
lack of responsibility, corruption, no legal precautions, local circumstances, lack of vision…? Achieving such big goals on a global
scale seems to be very complex. To have a better understanding we have consulted a leadership expert. He will give insight for
great leadership in achieving the MDGs and additional information how to become a great leader yourself. Also an example of an
anthropological issue conflicting with the MDGs is given by a fellow student, Parvathy Chandrasekhar. Hereafter, The deficits of
the MDG are further questioned by two Druppel reporters.
A lack of leadership...
It is a rainy Friday afternoon, and we are meeting with a leadership expert. Glenn Weisz (probably all familiar to the female participants of
Civil Engineering in Developing Countries) is waiting for us in the cozy coffeecorner of the library.We immediately notice a person with great
charisma, confidence and leadership. A little shy we greet and take place in the uncomfortable seats of the coffeecorner. As soon as Glenn
starts sharing his ideas, we get dragged into his passionate story…
Interviewers:
Odilia Schölvinck &
Nadja den Besten
How would you define good leadership?
“Good leaders could be defined as people who know why
they do what they do (their purpose), people whom are aware
of their qualities (know where they can contribute), people
whom are passionate about their action and people whom
think in terms of continuity. These are the basic aspects that I
think good leadership exists of.”
Are the failures or successes of the MDGs imputable
to leadership?
“Taking into consideration the above mentioned; good leadership is needed to achieve goals in general. Therefore, I state
that for achieving the MDGs, good leadership is needed as
well. When talking about the MDGs we talk about goals that
are ambitious and concern many stakeholders; beyond our
comprehension. This means that a lot of different parties are
involved in working towards the goal. In order to succeed, different visions should be shared, heard and finally committed
to, to establish the overall purpose. Here comes in a special
aspect of leadership, called vision sharing: being able to bring
parties together, share concerns, define mutual objectives. We
need leadership to facilitate this process, to define the goals,
to secure them and -when needed- to remind different stakeholders what they were again. The latter requires passion of
the leader to keep inspiring others to take action.”
But is there a single leader needed in a project to succeed? Can’t it evolve from a community force?
“I believe that one should distinguish between the authoritarian leader and a leader that initiates leadership among the
22
others. It is not about the genius with the thousand helpers, it
is about facilitating a community where each stakeholder has
ownership and takes its responsibility, and where a common
goal is shared and secured.
By achieving such ambitious goals as the MDGs you need every
stakeholder to exert leadership. As the anecdote goes:
“Strong Leadership requires someone who
realizes when to look into the mirror or
when to look through the window.. “
“If things are going well he/she should be able to look through
the window and give the credits to the people whom are doing it. However when things are going bad he/she should be
able to look in the mirror as well, take his/her responsibility
and be critical towards his/her leadership. Too often, we see it
the other way around unfortunately.”
What is the best attitude as a leader in a foreign project?
“In any project we should distinguish between leadership and
management. In foreign projects we usually talk about project
management. To quote Covy, another leadership expert:
“Leadership precedes management.”
“To put it in a nutshell: management is about performing your
tasks in the right manner, while leadership about doing the
right thing! Projects often fail because of a lack of vision or
inadequate communication of the vision towards the team.
This results in people not knowing the purpose behind what
Critical
notes
they are doing: the communication fails, goals are not achieved,
un-clarity, despair, etc. If you are continuously aware about the
fact that leadership should create a common understanding
and combine forces, then you are working your way towards
bringing a project to success. When doing projects in different
development countries myself, I’ve always set my mind to learn
at least as much from local people, as I thought they could
learn from us. Uneducated does not necessarily imply undeveloped, you know. I was always pleasantly surprised how wise
many people were in development areas, despite the lack of
traditional education.”
How can you maintain your vision as a leader when
setbacks are encountered?
“Setbacks are always there and that is good, because without there is no progress. The main thing is maintaining your
passion and remain confident about your own potential and
that of your team.That will make you resilient against setbacks.
Passion and confidence amongst many other things are crucial
in securing a project’s continuity.”
To be a good leader in a foreign project what kind of
personal goal (passion) is needed?
“I keep going back to the theory, but we could look at leadership from two dimensions: task-oriented focus and people-oriented focus. Both aspects are required, there is no better or
worse. Thus, effective leadership requires one to focus on the
goals as well as expressing genuine interest in people. In contributes to the ownership, involvement and commitment of
every stakeholder to meet the desired outcome. Interestingly,
in foreign projects you also encounter anthropological issues
that make the project even more complex. A good leader
should be able to notice these differences, minimize the risk
they oppose as he/she seeks to focus on the common purpose
all stakeholders share. Cultural awareness is extremely important; the ability to empathize as a leader is therefore a must.”
After the interview we were inspired by the words of Glenn. We came to the conclusion that everybody should bear in mind: good leaders are
the individuals that initiate leadership among others. Never forget that as an individual, whether a student or a professional, true leadership
is a coexistence and not an ego tour. And to finish off with one last quote by Glenn:
“Great leaders were often perceived as troublemakers when they started.Yet life changers when they persisted”
Glenn’s Tips towards good leadership:
1. Make sure you know what you value as important, or what makes your heart beat faster.
2. Imagine: Once you have no expectation of others, no study debts, but a million dollar on your bank account.
What would be the first thing you would do? What would be the first activity that will give you contentment?
3. Go and ask your surrounding where your talents lay.
4. How can you combine these talent(s) and passion(s) into practice, in an activity where you can contribute. S
Cultural differences...
I grew up in a country where people are divided not just by
their religion and language but also by the social hierarchy
of the household in which they are born - also known as a
person’s caste. As a kid, I was not aware of how deep rooted the caste system was in India and I certainly did not care
from what social groups my friends came from, as long as I had
someone to play with. However, as I became older, it became
painfully apparent to me that there was no escaping the very
rigid social hierarchy in my country. The caste system ruled
everything – right from college admissions that worked based
on reservations for each caste to politics where parties were
formed based on the caste system.
During my Masters at TU Delft, the issue of the caste based
society back home still haunted me and I did my Master thesis
on Drinking Water Security in Peri Urban India. The research
offered a fascinating lens through which I could study the rights
based approach to water access. I learnt that the societal set
up in rural India still did not allow the people from the lowest
caste, commonly known as Dalits, to access basic resources.
The concept of the purity of exists as a theme and is used to
exclude the lowest caste members of the society from the water sources as it is believed that they are capable of polluting
them. In case, a Dalit accidentally (or in some cases, in an act of
desperation) drinks water from these sources, an exhaustive
ritual is done in order to purify the water source again. Usually,
the “culprit” is punished for his/her act and shunned further
by the other people.
The argument that the so-called upper caste people give are
– “Can the Dalits not be satisfied using the water that we
give them? Why do they still complain of inequality?” Though
there are policies that aim to improve the water access to
the lower castes, the state based approach and inadequacy of
local interventions has resulted in the persistence of the situation. According to me, new policies should aim at including the
people who are otherwise socially excluded in the decision
making process, right from the village level. Even here, the local
authorities have the position to concentrate power to the socially dominant and the whole process becomes just a façade.
It is not easy to erase the deep rooted social and cultural
beliefs of the people and it might take a long time to expose
and address the inequities at a very local scale.
As John F Kennedy rightly said: “Anyone who can solve the problems of water will be worthy of two Nobel prizes – one for peace
and one for science” S
Author:
Parvathy
Chandrasekhar
23
Critical
notes
Authors:
Odilia Schölvinck &
Nadja den Besten
Contact us:
What do you think?
Write your thoughts
to:
Druppeldwm@
gmail.com
24
Some things to think about...
Seeing so many good examples of the
MDGs in execution throughout this edition of the Druppel it is also of value
to critically assess them. As previously
mentioned the MDGs did not all succeed: the goals related to hunger, sanitation, and the environment have not been
met. The MDGs are huge goals, cutting
through many disciplines and addressing many stakeholders. You could even
question whether the MDGs are sincere
goals. Maybe they are just a loose collection of diplomatic soft agreements
between the world leaders? More a promotion on what is wished for than actual international recognised standards.
Nevertheless, before the formation of
the MDGs there was no common framework to promote global development at
all. The goals have brought diffuse international development closer together
with this international initiation; a very
important and valuable outcome on its
own. But to be able to improve, you
need to know what is wrong with the
current goals and their structure.
As mentioned by Glenn, a lack of leadership could be one of the shortcomings
in the MDGs. More precisely put: due
to a lack of shared vision, responsibility
and continuity of the goals. The MDGs
do not describe who is accounted for
the goals and where the responsibility
lays in the end is unknown. The UN updates every once in a while progression
on the MDGs, but this touches the next
problem with the MDGs. There is a lack
of data about the progression on the
MDGs. Not every country has the money, nor the ability, to monitor the data
about the evolvement on the different
MDG topics. Combined with a missing
international framework to manage the
information, this results in an incomplete
update on the MDGs.
Content wise there are also problems
with the MDGs. As they evolved from
the Millennium Declaration, they missed
out goals on peace, disarmament, human
rights and democracy. Which is rather
peculiar when you think about it: How
would you achieve food security without
focussing on peace? Or how would you,
for example, improve the availability of
drinking water in India if the caste system overrules? The latter questions result from the fact that the goals do not
stand alone and exemplifies every region
needs a different approach; maybe even
seeks for a different goal. So are diplomatic global goals needed to develop
regionally? S
This figure shows the current status of the MDGS. (Source: Sulishealth.com)
A Drinking water well in Mozambique
Picture: Luuk Rietveld
Drinking water in Jakarta
In the second week of November 2014 we left the Netherlands temporarily to participate in a multidisciplinary project
in Jakarta, Indonesia. For this project our team consisted of
five MSc Civil Engineering Water Management students with
Water Resource Management and Sanitary Engineering specializations. The project focussed on the treatment and distribution of drinking water in the largest metropolis of the
archipelago Indonesia. For this research the team looked at
the possibilities for improvement of drinking water production
and supply by means of literature research, data analysis and
the execution of various experiments.
The project itself was about the possibilities of optimization in
the production and supply of drinking water in the metropolis
Jakarta. Within the scope of the project the treatment processes of three various water treatment plants were analysed,
the efficiency was determined, the distribution network was
analysed, experiments were conducted, improvement possibilities were researched and subsequently recommendations
were provided in order to improve the supply of clean water
in the city.
In the first weeks, we started learning the basics of the local
language in order to understand numbers, ingredients for food
and how to greet. These basics proved to be very useful, since
the local people appreciated this gesture to learn the language.
It was also very helpful since all the menus in restaurants were
written in Bahasa.
The cultural differences between Indonesia and the Netherlands are huge. People in Indonesia have less properties, but
are happy with their belongings. Things are less complicated
in Indonesia: people exercise proceedings they feel like to be
required. Therefore it seems they create their own jobs. The
food is also much more simple: the base of each meal is rice,
combined with chicken, some herbs and sometimes vegetables. Day in, day out. We think this more simplistic way of life
decreases the stress level drastically.
The traffic in the city itself is bizarre.There are so many scooters and cars: it is busy all day on the roads. Jakarta has 10
million inhabitants during the night and during the day an extra
10 million people that travel towards the city for their job.This
results in major business on the road and huge traffic jams.
Four people on a single scooter are not a rarity.
We spent free time with sports (swimming and fitness) and
relaxing in the rooms or the roof of our apartment. In the
weekends we spent more time sightseeing, either in Jakarta
or outside the city. We went to some islands near the coast of
Jakarta and various places on the island Java like Bandung and
Jogjakarta for example. Here we enjoyed the beautiful sights,
culture, food, nature and people of Indonesia.
The trip was really useful for personal development: we
learned to consider and appreciate values and norms of different cultures. On the other hand it is really good to see how
to apply technologies in practice and how useful these are for
the local people. It was also nice to distribute information to
local employees of the water companies and our Delft vision
of thinking. We think Indonesia can really benefit from this information and vision.
Indonesia, we enjoyed you! Hopefully we see you again, sometime! S
Project
abroad
Author:
Niels van Linden
29
Water
Mexico - Construction of Eastern Drainage Tunnel
Deemed to be the biggest underground drainage tunnel
in the world, this 7 m diameter tunnel is about 62 km in
length and stretched from Rio de los Remedios and ends
in water treatment plant in Atotonilco de Tula. Started in
2008, the tunnel is constructed in order to support the
existing drainage tunnels and canals in Mexico City that
proved to be unable to overcome the floods in the city.
When it is done and operated at full capacity, the Eastern
Drainage Tunnel is going to be able to drain 150 m3/s
stormwater out of Mexico City.
Viviana Rangel
Chile - Repealment of the Water Code
Under the dictatorship era, Chilean Government decided to
privatize water resources by granting the state the right to
grant water-use rights to private companies free of charge
and for a very long period. The code also allowed private
companies to use their share of water without taking into
consideration local water use. This problematic code was
finally repealed in 2005 and the Chilean Government has
been trying to put back social equity and environmental
concerns in their righteous place ever since.
Vanida Salgado
30
Greece - Rehabilitation of Asopos River and Groundwater
Located in a heavily industrialized and agricultural area, Asopos River
basin has fifty times higher hexavalent chromium concentration than
the national legal limit. To overcome this, the Greek Government
launched a remediation project. The method used in this program is
phyto-extraction and rhizofiltration using halophytes plants. The hexavalent chromium substance in the water is absorbed and/or adsorbed
on to harvestable parts of the plants and removed from the water
content. Pilot projects in a form of wetlands are now being done by
Tech. University of Crete.
Athina Chrisovergi, Charikleia Sifaki, Konstantinos Makris, and Athina Pappa
Cameroon - Degassing of Lake Nyos
In 1986, an enormous amount of CO2 gas was released from Lake Nyos, an
active volcanic crater lake in Cameroon that was formed about 500 years ago.
The heavy gas flew down to the inhabited areas and killed people up to 25 km
away from the lake. While the scientific world is still debating the reason behind
this sudden CO2 release, most of them agreed that something had happened in
the lake which triggered the upward movement of CO2-riched layer that has
been trapped in the bottom of the lake for a long time. More studies revealed
that there is a continuously CO2 formation happening at the bottom of the lake,
so an attempt to degas the deep zones of the lake using electronic pump was
made in 2001.
Botswana - Okavango Delta Management Plan
Tourism activity in Okavango Delta, the only perennial
river in Africa that flows eastwards without ever reaching
the ocean, is placed as a highly potential alternative for
increasing the national revenue. To sustain the high-end
quality of the delta, the Bostwana Government initiates a
holistic approach in managing the whole delta area. They
devolve the management to the lowest level of each community in the area within the acceptable ecological limits
and relevant economic context. The management plan
itself heavily relied on wide consultation and collaborative
actions among involved stakeholders.
World
Cyprus - Desalination of Seawater and Greywater
Recycling for Drinking Water Supply
As an island country surrounded by saltwater, Cyprus
maintains its drinking water supply by turning seawater
into freshwater and recycling their municipal greywater.
To deal with the high requirement of energy for operating the drinking water treatment plant with desalination,
recent studies supported by the Cyprus Government
direct toward the implementation of renewable energy.
Maria Evangelou and Athina Pappa
China - Yangtze River Rehabilitation Program
Stretched over 6300 kilometres,Yangtze River is the largest river in
China. It has a drainage area of approximately 1.8 million km2 and
inhibited by over 400 million people. In recent years, due to nation’s
rapid economic growth, the river has suffered from heavy industrial
pollution, agricultural run-off, siltation, and loss of flood plains. Chinese
Government launched EFCA (Ecosystem Function Conservation
Areas) programs that will increase the water retention capacity of the
river basin and reduce the sediment loads along the river.
Hillary Wang
Iran - Urban Areas Drinking Water Overuse
The surge of population in several urban areas in Iran posed as a potential threat for
the continuity of the nation’s drinking water supply, especially in Great Teheran where
12 million out of 75 million Iranian lives. Recent studies point out that domestic water
use in Iran is already 70% higher than the global average. This condition combined with
the fact that precipitation has decreased over the past years might possibly lead to the
implementation water rationing system in the capital.
Reza Nejad
India - Anthropological Issues in Clean Water Distribution
Studies point out that the caste-based clean water distribution system in
rural India has cost people from certain caste their access to clean water.
This in-equalities issue which is closely connected to fundamental life
principles of the people living in rural India had raised concern from within
the country itself. One of the most effective solutions that is offered was to
increase the opportunity for lower caste community to provide clean water
for themselves. This considered more effective because in this way the water
dependency to the regional government, which often rules by the higher
caste, is lessened.
Parvathy Chandrasekar
Australia - Wivenhoe Dam Optimization Plan
Deemed as the largest water storage in South East Queensland, the total storage capacity of this
dam is 2.6 million mega liters with normal supply capacity as much as 1.15 million mega liters and
flood capacity at 1.45 million mega liters at the maximum. Following the 2010-2011 severe floods
in Brisbane and Ipswich, the Queensland Government conducted an optimization study and
provisions for Wivenhoe dam. The optimization actions include higher releases earlier in a flood
event, reducing the dam safety compartment without causing an unacceptable risk to the dam,
and maintain the current level of the water supply compartment for water supply security.
Khalif Jusuf
31
Project
abroad
Author:
Sandra de Vries
32
Flooding in Jakarta
Hujan, Benar benar hujan, Banjir.
Rain, All that rain, Flooding. These are well-known fraises and
words here in Jakarta. In the rainy season it can rain so intensively and for such a long period, that the streets and storm
water drainage can’t cope with all the water and turn into
rivers, the rivers can’t cope with the water and turn into overflowing bathtubs and the polder in the north becomes a sink
for the sea that overflows because of high tide.
I have been so lucky as to see the beginning of this flooding yesterday during my bike ride through one of the heaviest
rains I have seen in my time here in Jakarta, and to see the end
of it Friday last week when I drove to a part in the north that
had been inundated.
As many of you might know, Jakarta is started to be called the
new Atlantic city. Predictions are made saying the city will be
sunk in 25 years, or maybe even sooner. What was first called
climate change and sea level rise, turns out to be a massive
and rapid land subsidence, with a mean rate of 7.5 - 10 cm/
year, and a maximum rate of 17.9 cm/year in some places, creating a previously normal city in a delta, into a polder. How
this land subsidence is caused is debated on heavily and views
range from natural compaction and heavy city loads, to over
extraction of groundwater, to tectonic movements. Whatever
is causing the subsidence, the subsidence at least clearly causes
flooding in this metropolitan city.
Flooding is such a common thing here, that when it happens it’s
pretty normal to be late and say, banjir. It explains everything
immediately. It seems like a second nature for the citizens of
Jakarta to be prepared to move all their belongings to the
upper floor or to walk through the inundated streets. And it’s
even more normal that almost everything stops working.
The day after the flooding of the north of Jakarta (in the night
of 22 to 23 of January), I watched the Dutch news. It had
been snowing and the train rails were frozen, creating a stop
of trains all through the Randstad, and a delay in many other
trains. That was the first time I realized that even in the Netherlands, we can’t stop mother nature. Turns out we Dutch are
not so different from the Indonesians. We cope with winter,
they cope with rain.
At that particular Friday however, I turned out to be exactly at
the right spot, at the southern most part of the North, were
the inundation just started, in the office of the local sub-district. For my research it turned out that the trip was pretty
useless, the officers were all in the field, trying to map the
flooding. I did however speak to a couple of people there, and
they started asking me why we Dutch never had a flooding,
while we also lived under sea level. Also, the remark came that
the Dutch had put up such a good drainage system, and then
they left and the Indonesians messed it up. Sometimes, I am
truly surprised on the attitude of the Indonesians against the
Dutch. Apparently no grudge at all exists, while we did some
pretty horrible things here before we left. Things that are not
(yet) taught at the Dutch schools, and seemingly maybe neither here.
The Monday after, I saw an article in the Jakarta Post explaining the cause of this major flooding. The heading said: “Ahok
blames ministry project in Sunter for Friday flood”, Ahok being
the Governor of Jakarta. What happened? A dredging project
contractor initiated by the Public Works Ministry, destroyed
a 215-meter long embankment to make way for heavy equipment. They had almost completely rebuilt the embankment,
except for a 35-meter long section. For a flooding to occur, a
35-meter section will do just as well as a 215-meter section.
The first question that pops up into your mind when you read
this, is “Why the hell would you do this in the rainy season!!!”.
That was exactly the thing that Governor Basuki Ahok did not
understand.
A couple of my colleagues from Deltares do not share his view
though. They were in the field and also analyzed the rainfall
intensity. According to Aditya Ifan and Bayu Raharja the most
significant factor was local rainfall; since it was an event of
around 100-200 mm rainfall a day. And of course, other factors
were also named, like for example the too low bridges creating bottlenecks, trash racks filled with trash creating blockings,
and too low pump capacities. The Sunter project was certainly
not the only problem.
The construction on the embankments are not the only
flood-related works going on in the city. The city has allocated 2.7 trillion Indonesian Ruppies for flood-related projects
in 2015 alone (Jakarta Post). A lot of Dutch companies are
also working together with the Indonesian Government, to
realize a project that shuts of the Jakarta Bay with a huge dam
and land reclamations forming islands, called the Great Garuda
plan or the NCICD.
There is much and more to tell about this all, so maybe when
I’m back I will write some more on Jakarta and on what I am
doing here related to these problems.
Tosh (cheers) everybody, and greetings from Jakarta! S
Olive mill wastewater
Greece
Author:
Athina Pappa
Olive mill wastewater at Falasarna beach (photo from cretalive.gr)
Water management in another country from yours can be a
complex enigma with unexpected parameters to take into account! The local characteristics of each system can make the
system unique. Here is an example. How can a very innocent,
healthy and natural product become a top problem for water
managers?
In areas in the Mediterranean region, the cultivation of olive
trees and the products coming from them are a type of agriculture practice established for more than 7000 years and the
consumption of olive oil has an increasing trend worldwide
due to its high nutritional characteristics.
Olive oil is the liquid product of the traditional press extraction of olives which takes place in olive mills. The extraction
method and the three-phase decanter process are two common procedures used in olive oil production. The basic products coming out of this procedure are the olive oil and the
waste. The stream of waste contains wet solid waste, called
‘crude olive cake’, and the aqueous waste called ‘olive mill
waste water’. In simple terms, the solid waste is what remains
after the olives had been pressed and is a mixture of olive pulp
with olive stones and nowadays it can be used as solid fuels.
On the other hand, the olive oil waste water treatment and
disposal require a lot of attention because of the characteristics of this effluent.
The effluent of the olive mills, which worldwide is estimated
at 7 to 30 millions m3, is a mixture of vegetation water, soft
tissues of the olive fruit, and water used at the different phases
of the oil production which contain olive pupl, mucilage, pectin,
etc. Although, in terms of volume generated, it is considered
not as important as other waste water i.e. the domestic sewage, its seasonality and the big environmental pollution which
can cause, are the basic characteristics that made the olive
mills waste water a scientific research field.
From chemical point of view, the olive mill waste water has
strong and offensive smell and a very high organic content,
with COD as high as220 g/l and the ratio of COD/BOD5 between 2.5 and 5. Its pH is between 3 and 5.9 and it also has
high content of polyphenols-up to 80g/l, which are not easily
biodegradable. More over it has high content of solid matter
up to 20g/l and is considered toxic. In order to give an idea
about the pollution effect of the olive mill waste water, it can
be said that 1 m3 of olive mill waste water is equivalent to
100-200 m3 of domestic sewage.
If the olive mill waste water is disposed without control in water reservoirs serious problems will occur, especially at natural
water bodies like surface and ground water reservoirs, seashore and sea. The effect that is most easily spotted by people
is the discoloration of the stream water, due to oxidation and
polymerization of tannins. This waste water also has a significant amount of reduced sugars, with high phosphorous content and phenolic load, which are toxic to some aquatic organisms. However, there are some microorganisms which able to
metabolize sugars and develop faster against other organisms.
Moreover, due to the high phosphorous content the growth of
algae is encouraged, resulting to eutrophication.
Due to the problems mentioned above, the design of an olive
mill treatment plant is more challenging. The intense and the
seasonal production of the waste for about 4 months each
winter, the variability of the synthesis and the quantity, the regional and small size of olive mills can raise some design problems. Olive mills are often present as small scale enterprises
and it is difficult for them to afford the cost of expensive proper wastewater treatment, unless there is a treatment simple
and cheap.
Some of the widely-used methods for the treatment of olive oil waste water are the bioremediation (ex-situ, in-situ),
thermal processes (incineration, pyrolysis, gasification), evaporation, membrane processes, electrolysis, ozonation, digestion,
coagulation/flocculation/precipitation, and distillation. Also, in
the framework of European Life project (Project LIFE07/INF/
IT/438) a list with existing commercial technologies was created after the in-situ inspection of the partners of the specific
project.
There is still a lot of research to be done in order to optimize the treatment of the olive mill waste water. The methods should lead to an environmentally friendly and sustainable
disposal of the waste water to the nature systems and also
be suitable to be applied by the small enterprises not only in
technological terms but also from financial aspects, which will
influence the level of appliance by people, who are responsible
for the olive mill waste water. S
33
Symposium 2015
Water as a
Weapon
34
Photos: Frank Auperlé
35
36
Shit-Eating Worms
During aerobic treatment of wastewater
a lot of excess sludge is produced. This
excess sludge can effectively be reduced
when digested anaerobically by converting it into biogas. Hydrolysis is the rate
limiting step in the anaerobic digestion
process. Anaerobic bacteria cannot take
up these large molecules and therefore
excrete exo-enzymes, which break them
up in smaller parts. Increasing the efficiency of this hydrolysis process will reduce the retention time and therewith
the size needed for anaerobic digesters,
increase the conversion of COD of the
influent into biogas and reduce the costs
of waste sludge disposal. Worm predation of the excess sludge has shown to
decrease the amount of total suspended
solids and increase the overall biodegradability of the organic matter. Could a
worm reactor pre-hydrolyse the excess
sludge before it goes to the anaerobic
reactor?
Unfortunately little is known about how
worms can improve the sludge for anaerobic digestion. The conversion of sludge
in a worm reactor can be the result of
either enzymatic or mechanical/chemical mechanisms of the worms. If there
is enzymatic breakdown of TSS and VSS,
it can be done either by a microbial
community inside and surrounding the
worms, or by the worms themselves or
by both the worms and the microbial
community. Together with Steef de Valk
and Ahmad Khadem, I experimented
with the worms to figure out if either
the microbial community or the worm
itself is essential for the hydrolysis.
Tubifex-worms
The worms used in the experiments are
aquatic worms, of the species Tubifex.
The worms were stored in a small aerated aquarium and were obtained from
a fish-feed producer. A fish-aquarium is
generally very hard to maintain: fish are
very vulnerable to water quality, algae
can grow extensively, fish get ill very
quickly because of cross breading, etc.
But why bother with fish? Worms are
great fun! You can take them out of the
water to show them to guests. They actually like bad water quality. They don’t
need a specific type of food. You can go
on holiday for weeks. And together, they
form all kinds of nice ball shapes.
Experimental setup
We placed the worms in batches with
sterile water and fed them with the
coloured protein azo-casein.The amount
of protein in the batch was determined
by measuring the colour or light absorption in a photo spectrometer. A sample from the batch was taken and the
remaining un-hydrolysed proteins were
precipitated by adding a strong acid
(TCA). By pushing the sample through
a 0.45μm filter the precipitated un-hydrolysed protein was removed from the
sample.The colour of the filtered sample
indicated the amount of hydrolysed protein. We took samples three times a day
to compare them with the kinetics.
By adding antibiotics, we tried to kill or
deactivate the bacteria in the worms to
check whether the worms could hydrolyse the proteins themselves. We tested
two types of antibiotics – streptomycin
and tetracycline – and incubated the
worms for various days before the protein would be dosed. Both antibiotics
block the protein synthesis in bacteria
and therefore limit the growth of bacteria. They should therefore limit the metabolism of bacteria, the reproduction
and even reduce the number of bacteria,
which would result in a reduced hydrolysis of azo-casein.
Reality
Initially, this seemed to be true: the
results showed lines of different conversion rates and total conversion for
batches with and without antibiotics.
However, the experimental results were
not reproducible when we improved the
setup by reducing the chance of infection or the chance of worms dying. The
number of worms for which the experiment was fatal is uncountable – we had
to kill those worms that had been in
contact with antibiotics – so after finishing the experiments I must have lost a
lot of karma…
Therefore, I discarded the antibiotics and
tried something else. The bacteria in the
intestines of the worms were also found
around the worms. After taking some
liquid from a previous batch in which hydrolysis was observed and dosing it to a
batch with only protein and no worms,
this batch had a higher conversion of
protein than a batch without such a
dose. The same effect was observed by
washed and un-washed worms from a
previous experiment and placing them
in new batches: the conversion rate of
protein in batches with washed worms
was lower than with un-washed worms.
The bacteria that come with the worms
seem to play a crucial role in the hydrolysis. Perhaps those bacteria can be culti-
Lab Setup
vated and used as a pre-treatment step.
This wouldn’t mean that a worm reactor
cannot be a good pre-treatment for an
anaerobic reactor. Perhaps they crush
and compact the TSS into “faecal pellets”
which makes it more easily degradable.
Final thoughts
Things never work out like you want to
– especially in the lab.All you can do is to
try your best and be creative in finding
new ways of approaching your subject.
In any project, time is the limiting factor
– with more time I think I would have
been able to manage to produce the result I wanted – but it also stimulates you
to push a little harder. Over time your
thinking evolves and in the end you realise that you should have done, decided
or thought about things earlier. Because
of that, three months is a bit short to
make the subject all yours.
You can never be satisfied with the results if you haven’t reached your goal.
But perhaps that’s the tragedy of the lab.
Also the goals you have set might have
been unrealistic. Perhaps in the future
someone else will figure it out, although
you would rather see yourself do it. But
there is also beauty in doing something
that comes with a lot of uncertainties.
And when you encounter something
alike next time, you know what to do.
Author:
Frans Willem
Hamer
37
Sports
Author:
Raoul Collenteur
1. http://www.internationalrivers.org/
Kayaking on the wild White Nile
For a long time, I sent in photos of kayaking for every photo contest the Druppel organized. [red: this is not true. Mister
Collenteur sent us this picture only once…]
With these photos never being selected
and the committee getting annoyed [red:
this is true], you understand how happy
I was when they asked me to write an
article about one of my latest kayaking
trips to Uganda. We all have a (professional) passion for water. Here I would
like to share mine!
For many years I have been wanting to
go to the White Nile in Uganda, a real
paradise for freestyle kayakers that attracts paddlers from all over the world.
The first time I started thinking about
going here was seven years ago, when
the Bujagali Dam was being built that
flooded several sections of classic whitewater. Now, seven years later, the highly
controversial Isimba Dam is being engineered and might soon flood what is left
of the whitewater and the ecosystem on
the Nile – I will get back to this later.
Considering the above and knowing that
the Nile River is the perfect place to get
in shape for the 2015 competition season, tickets were booked and working
on my thesis delayed!
The flight to Entebbe, Uganda, was super
easy, as Brussel Airlines allows you to fly
your boat for free – a rarity I have never had before flying my boat around the
world. A three-hour cab ride later we (a
friend and me) arrived to what would be
our home for the next three weeks: the
Hairy Lemon. This is a green lush island
in the middle of the Nile, 5 minutes paddling away from two world class waves.
Meals are prepared for you three times a
day and the only thing you really have to
care about is whether the water level is
good for paddling or not. I think ‘Sleepeat-kayak-repeat’ describes our days
here best. With 800 m3/s coming down
the Nile, the whitewater is big, and the
waves even bigger.
Now, I could talk about kayaking for another 1000 words, but let me get back
the that controversial Isimba Dam. Off
course, being a kayaker I prefer the idea
of free-flowing rivers, but I can’t deny
the need for new energy sources to fuel
Uganda’s ongoing development. However, there’s more to this story than just
the kayakers point of view,which for you
would be rather boring I guess. With the
construction of the Bujagali Dam that
finished in 2012, the Ugandan government agreed with the World Bank, that
is financing the Bujagali Dam, on the
‘Kalagala Offset Sustainable Management
Plan’.This Indemnity Agreement basically
committed the Ugandan Government to
conserve what is left of the ecosystem,
including the whitewater rapids, and
promote tourism development activities.
The Isimba Dam, depending on its size,
could flood this entire conservation area
and terminate all the tourism activities
related to the river. It has been estimated that 50,000 jobs in the area around
Jinja are directly or indirectly related to
river activities1. The current impact assessment made for the Isimba project
misses an overall quantitative cost-benefit analysis2, which could provide a better insight on the overall effect of the
sustainability of the dam project. I do
not have a final conclusion to this story, nor do I pretend to know what the
exact impact of the dam will be and if it
will be beneficial to Uganda as a coun-
try. I do know local communities will be
heavily impacted, ecosystems will be lost
and that the development of the dam is
controversial to what is agreed upon in
the Indemnity agreement between the
World Bank and the Ugandan Government. There is an interesting video on
this for those interested, you can find
the link on the side3.
The White Nile forms an interesting case study for us water managers,
where many interests (tourism, ecology,
energy) come together and hydropower
projects impact many parts of society.
It was amazing experience to finally go
to this place, do that three-day safari to
Murchison Falls National park and paddle two times a day. This river really is a
rare thing in the world, where tourists
can experience the energy of 800 m3/s
of water coming down, in relatively save
rapids and large waves. If you are ever in
Uganda, visit the White Nile before it’s
too late! S
2. http://www.nema-ug.
org/reports/
3. http://www.kayaksession.com/
Freestyle kayaking is a discipline in kayaking, where one tries to surf a standing (river) wave and perform tricks on it.The boats used are rather short, ±180cm,
allowing you to throw loops, cartwheels and basically any other rotation around any axis. In a competition, you will get 45 seconds rides to perform as many (high)
scoring moves as possible.The White Nile has many of such world class standing waves, and combined with warm weather and water it forms the perfect training ground to prepare for the 2015 competition season! Search for “ Jackson Kayak Rockstar- Uganda” on Youtube to get an idea of what I am talking about!
38
39
Interview
An in-depth interview with prof. dr. ir. Luuk Rietveld
Interviewer:
Agnindhira
Napitupulu
After a lot of emails and visits to Water Management’s secretary office, Druppel finally got an appointment with Prof. dr. Luuk
Rietveld. Our curiosity grew overtime: How does it feel to be inside a very busy man’s agenda? We took a trip down his past
and talked about how his journey along the years has shaped him and his feeling towards becoming the new Head of Water
Management Department.
Can you tell us more about who you are, especially for the all
the new students here in the Water Management Department.
What is the story of Prof. Rietvield?
“I was a student too here in TU, back in 1979, when it was still
called Delft Technische Hogeschool. I started as a Physics Engineering student, though only for three months until I realized
that I was missing something. I wanted to do something that
has more connection to the society, something that can give
impacts directly to the society. So my friend told me that it is
better for me to change program to Civil Engineering and I did
that. I chose Water Management for my specialization after a
very inspirational water management project in Nicaragua that
I did in the beginning of my master year. “
Now we know how you ended up in the water management
world, but we understand that drinking water is widely known
as your territory. How did you got in to that?
“It all started with Mozambique. Okay… first of all I have to
tell you that after I graduated I really wanted to go abroad
and worked in developing countries. There were two reasons,
first because I really fond of my experience in Mozambique.
It touched me and I wanted to do that again. And the second
reason was because at that time there was this conscription
rule where you have to do military service for a certain period
of time. But, it is not necessary if you spend two years or more
abroad for social works.
“So back to the topic, I was wondering how to get in to an international project when suddenly an offer came. It was something about developing a new sanitary engineering course in
the local university in Mozambique. He asked me, ‘Are you up
for the task, Luuk?’ Of course I said yes directly! So we went to
Mozambique and worked there for four years. My main tasks
40
were to develop all types of teaching materials along with several researches in sanitary engineering field.”
What happened after Mozambique ? How did you start your
career here at the TU?
“After Mozambique, I decided to come back to The Netherlands and work for the university. They asked me if I could
help them in Management Centre for International Co-operation, based on my experiences working abroad in developing
countries. It was a short period, only from 1991 until 1994.
Hereafter I realized how much I missed working in water management field and to be more involved in it. That was why in
1994 or 1995 I applied to be a part of the Water Management
Department.
“Personally, the reason why I wanted to continue my academic career here was because at that time research was not
very developed yet and it get me thinking, now that I am in
a research environment I wanted to know more about water
treatment. I did my PhD as a part-time activity because I also
did other work for the department. Actually, I was one of the
very first people defending PhD in drinking water treatment
sector. After that I became an assistant professor and then an
associate professor. Finally in 2010 I was appointed as a fulltime professor here. The amazing thing is that even though
I have been in this department for a very long time I always
found new challenges.”
In your new function as department head, do you have any
particular new idea you want to add here in the Department?
Any innovation you want to bring?
“Well personally, I think innovation should be gradual and of
course we have to match what we want to do with the oppor-
Interview
tunity that appears in the university too, being an integrated
part of the organization. There are three important things that
I will pay more attention to, related to my capacity as the Head
of the Department, these are research, education, and funding.
“For improving funding, we have to find out possibilities to
team up with companies so we have extra money to do research and expand our capacity. For education, I want to attract as many as possible potential great (master) students in
to the department.
“Aside for its high relevancy to recent matters, there is a high
demand for well-educated water managers and sanitary engineers. There are two ways to attract more students, first we
can try to reach the people who have the potential. Secondly,
we can try to be more visible to the civil engineering bachelor
students, try to show them how interesting it is to study master in Water Management program.”
For you traveling abroad to work in water management issues
is a very good experience for the students?
“Yes! Travelling abroad is the best method of learning. The reasons are: First, when you travel you take yourself with you
and you become more aware of what your strong points are
as well as your weak points. You will be able to develop those
strong points. It will make you realize of your ability to function in a totally different environment. Second, you will also
able to see a lot of different water systems, ones that don’t
work and others that are perfectly operated.Travelling to a lot
of different places will broaden your knowledge a lot.”
It seems that you have plenty of experience working abroad.
Can you tell us your most interesting project, so far?
“Well that’s quite hard because they each have their own
uniqueness which makes them interesting in a certain way.
Maybe it is the first project that I’ve ever done, the one in
Nicaragua. There were seven of us, students from all different
backgrounds. Our task was to make an evaluation on the water supply in this small village in Nicaragua. So we went there
and we evaluated the system but we didn’t stop there.We also
built and improved their clean water communal well. People
there still remember me until now.”
after I get home. I also do some sport, I play field hockey with
a group of friends. We have a little league and we called it
The Competition of The Veterans. We play every Sundays, just
friends having fun playing and drinking beers together.”
We always ask the professors if they have advice for students,
looking back to your experience as a student, do you have
something you want to share?
“Inspiration is very important. I had a hard time during the first
three years of my study because I didn’t know what I wanted
to do. Once you are inspired you can see the whole system
better, you can see the link between courses. When you want
to make progress in your study, take your study as being work.
Be more disciplined toward your study.”
What advice will you give to the students that are just graduated or about to start their career?
“It is always better to know where you want to work already,
even from before you start your thesis. Then it is good to do
your graduation thesis with that company. Especially if you are
an international student, it’s not that easy to enter the Dutch
market because most of the time you don’t speak Dutch. But
if you already have positive experience between you and the
company during your graduation thesis then they are more
open to offer you a job.
“I always advise the students to pass by their professor after
they had graduated and ask for a list of contact persons that
can be asked about work application. We have personal contact with a lot of directors of the relevant department, or even
the company itself. If we say to them that we believe in you and
send them your CV, you will at the very least get an interview.
You also see that now the world demand of well-educated water managers is increasing more and more. That’s why we see
a lot of opportunity for our students, so keep on trying and
more importantly work for things that you love the most.”S
With all these occupations, how do you balance everything?
“Well, I work for 60-70 hours a week. Sometimes things are
a little bit unbalance, because I have a lot of interests and I
always say yes, and then I get the conclusion that it’s too much.
One thing I’m doing now is to adjust the number of my PhD
students, with some of them are now graduating I will be more
selective in getting the new ones. If you have fewer students
you will have more time to supervise them.”
It seems that you don’t have so much spare time, what do you
do to refresh or regain your energy in such limited free time?
“I like to say that my work is part of my spare time because
all my colleagues are my friends. Sometime we have meetings
while we go out and have dinner, then after the real meeting
we can talk about something other than just work. For me it is
not a problem that my personal life is mixed with work things
and vice versa.
“I also enjoy walking all my three dogs two times a day; in the
morning before I go to the University and then in the evening
41
Thesis
Author:
Marlies
Barendrecht
42
Three countries of the Eastern Nile River Basin
Last December I went to Egypt, Sudan
and Ethiopia, to conduct interviews for
my thesis. My thesis discusses the information gap between decision makers
and scientists in these countries. Thus I
needed to do interviews with decision
makers: (old) ministers, advisors and
other people involved in the decision
making process. In Egypt and Sudan I
would have a contact person who would
help me get in touch with the interviewees and help me get to their offices.
Ethiopia would be a bit different. There I
would have to figure out myself who to
talk to and how to get to them. Despite
having put a lot of time in preparing my
interviews, I was still afraid that it would
all go horribly wrong. What if they did
not want to talk to a girl from the Netherlands? What if I did the interviews
wrong?
My first interview in Egypt was with my
contact person, so that went well. The
two after that, not so much. In the second interview there were a man and a
woman, instead of only the man I expected. He thought it would be good
if this woman joined as well. In all the
books I read on interviewing before I
went there, I had read that you should
try to avoid interviewing more than one
person at a time. But how was I going
to tell this man that this was not what
I wanted? He was years older, well educated and an important man in the
ministry, so I did not say anything and
tried to make the most of it. The next
interview was even worse. This man was
leading the conversation (also something
you should try to avoid when doing interviews) and I had a hard time getting
to all my questions.
Back at the hotel, I wondered why on
earth I thought it would be fun to do
interviews in Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.
How was I going to survive a whole
month of this on my own? Apart from
the fact that conducting interviews was
hard and tiring (especially in a different
culture), it was also hard to be on my
own in Cairo. Walking around Cairo is
a constant struggle to avoid and shake
off men that are either trying to sell you
something or are interested in a western woman travelling on her own. I tried
wearing a headscarf but that did not
keep them away either. Even in the hostel I did not feel completely at ease, because the manager was a bit too friendly.
But after a few days I started getting better at it. One evening I even played backgammon with an Egyptian guy, outside
at one of the many “cafés” – a bunch of
plastic chairs and tables, in the middle of
an alley. It was still a bit uncomfortable
though, because he kept staring into my
eyes whenever I would take them of the
board. The interviews also went well, after I just got used to the fact that when
you are doing interviews, not one is exactly the same as the other and it never
goes as you have planned.
Still it was very nice to arrive in Khartoum (Sudan), where I booked a more
expensive hotel (also because there are
no hostels in Sudan). The hotel was run
by Greeks and was filled with Europeans doing research in Sudan. The first
evening at dinner I sat down at a table
with a guy who introduced himself and
told me he was from Belgium. When I
asked him enthusiastically: “Oh, so you
speak Dutch?”, I heard a voice behind
me saying: “I do too!”. So that first night
in Khartoum I had a dinner with a Belgian and a Dutch, feeling a bit less lonely.
The interviews in Sudan went quite well,
although I had to do a lot of waiting.They
would tell me to wait for them, that they
would have time after the meeting and
then they would not show up. So the
next day, I had to come back and wait
again. Also, I drank a lot of coffee. Every
person you meet offers you coffee, and
even if you refuse, you still get it.The rest
of the time in Sudan was quite uneventful. I spent most of the days and evenings
in the hotel, sitting outside my room in
the sun or doing some work in my room.
Some nights I went out for dinner with
some of the other guests and I did a city
tour. But most of the time I was either
at the ministry to do interviews (or to
wait) or in my hotel.
After Sudan I went to Ethiopia. There
I would first attend a conference on
“New Nile Opportunities” organized by
the Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office (ENTRO) in cooperation with Unesco-IHE and after that I had to try to
interview Ethiopian decision makers. In
Ethiopia I did not have someone helping
me, so I had to find people by myself.
The first opportunity to find people to
interview would be at the conference.
The first day I did not really manage
to speak to anyone. I was already very
nervous for my presentation the next
day and I could not really bring myself to
also start networking. That night at the
hotel I was a bit angry with myself. How
did I think I would get to talk to anyone
in Ethiopia, if I could not even speak to
the people at the conference. Luckily, the
next day after my presentation I felt less
nervous and I actually managed to talk
to some people. Also people had seen
my presentation and wanted to talk to
me about it, so frankly, it was not only
me suddenly being social that made the
networking easier.
That night I went for some beers with
some of the European and American
participants. It was nice to be able to
just be myself and not constantly have to
wonder if I was behaving correctly. But
after that I started to feel lonelier by the
day. Ethiopia is not as bad as Cairo, but
there as well men are constantly staring
and shouting things. Even at ENTRO (the
international river basin organization),
where I thought that I could at least talk
to the people and let my guard down a
bit, there were apparently still guys who
thought I was an easy target.
Since I was staying in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) for two weeks and I also wanted
to interview some of the people at ENTRO, they gave me a desk to work at.
During one of the coffee breaks one
of the interns was helping me with my
phone which was not working.After that
he started talking to me on facebook. I
politely replied but tried to not ask any
questions, so as to not to encourage
him. Then, during the weekend he sent
me a text to tell me that he loved me. Of
course I did not reply, but that did not
put him off, he just kept on sending messages. Luckily the second week he went
to Sudan, so I would not see him again.
But even after blocking him on facebook,
he just switched to emailing. Now he has
stopped, but I do hope he does not get
the opportunity to study at Unesco-IHE,
or at least not until I have left Delft.
In the weekend I went to Lake Tana
and Lalibela to see the monasteries and
churches. It was very beautiful and although I did feel a bit guilty that I was
away and not busy trying to arrange
more interviews I am glad that I went.
Ethiopia is a very nice country with a
lot of history and I would really love to
go there alone, although next time I will
bring a guy with me.
When I got back to Addis Ababa I still
had a week to conduct some interviews.
Luckily I had already managed to get
some names and arrange some meetings
the week before, so in the end I was also
able to get enough data in Ethiopia.
All in all, it was a wonderful and productive journey, but after a month I was glad
to go home.
In the last couple of months people have
asked me the question: “Why do this research? Anyone can do social research.
Now, here at the TU, you have the opportunity to learn to model. The social
stuff, you can always do that.” During the
months before I left I often wondered
the same. But now that I am back I am
very glad that I am doing this research.
Modelling and other technical stuff I can
always teach myself later, if I need it. But
during this trip and also during the rest
of my research I have learned a lot that I
would not have learned, had I not done
this research. I learned to (try to) look
at the information that we generate and
that we want the decision makers and
policy makers to use the way they do,
and that is something that I find very
valuable. S
43
Kenya
A tour around the Mara Basin
Authors:
The Dutch6:
Dave de Koning
Rick van der Meijs
Annouk Rey
Guus Rongen
Sandra de Vries
Joreen Merks
Coming from the Netherlands we tried to explain to a lot of
people in Kenya that the only predator we ever saw was in a
zoo, and that the largest wild predator occurring in the Netherlands is a fox. It was hard to imagine for the Kenyan people.
And go figure, of course it is. If we tell our friends here that we
did measurements next to a river, while throwing rocks into
the water in order to make sure we weren’t gonna be eaten
alive by crocodiles, they find it hard to imagine as well. We are
truly a world apart.
So, who are we then? We are six Water Management and Hydraulic Engineering students from the Technical University of
Delft who joined Christopher Dutton on a 6-week trip around
the Mara River Basin. In order to fulfill a part of our studies, we
were able to do a multidisciplinary project for the Mau Mara
Serengeti Sustainable Water (MaMaSe) Initiative. Since the Initiative just started and almost no data was available, it would
be our task to gather as much data as possible and install meteorological stations and water level loggers.
No sooner said than done, we arrived in Kenya where we met
up with the local authorities and associations. We explained
to them what we intended to do in their basin, and they gave
input on what was important not to forget.We also borrowed
their RiverSurveyor, a very crucial measurement device during the project as it measures discharge and bottom profiles.
We also did water quality measurements, slope measurements
and morphological observations. By combining these measurements with the installation of time-lapse cameras and the
experimental remote data transferring water level loggers and
weather stations, we intended to provide the Initiative with
a good data supply for the coming years and with stage-discharge relations for the rivers in the basin.
The plan was simple but busy. In six weeks we toured around
the Mara Basin twice, passing by all the different areas like
the Mau Forest, the inhabited upper basin around Bomet and
Mulot, the reserve where we stayed at Maji Camp, the Talek
and the remote Sand River. At several places we were assisted
by people from the local associations and tourist camps, who
showed us good measurement places or allowed us to install
a device in their area. Together with Chris and Shadrak, our
44
driver and friend, we crossed paths with lions fighting with
cheetahs, wildebeests lying dead in the river, hippos and their
babies, and much more! It was an incredible way of working,
being on a safari for almost half of the trip. In Maji Camp, the
research camp in the reserve, we slept between the elephants
and hippos and showered while having a nice view of game
trails of zebras and warthogs.
At the end of the project there were 16 meteorological stations and 11 water level loggers working and they are still
sending data every half hour to the internet. They Ensure that
everybody can now know how much rain falls in for example
Bomet and what the water level is at the New Mara Bridge.
We also succeeded in creating seven stage-discharge relations for different places throughout the Mara Basin. So with a
known water level, a discharge can immediately be determined
giving information on how much water is in the basin. This
information combined with other data we gathered, can now
be used by the MaMaSe Initiative to find where there is water
shortage, if there are possibilities in storing water, influences
on water quality and hopefully much more.
Dave
During our stay in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, we encountered some things that are definitely worth sharing with the
lovely folks of the Water Management Dispuut. On the first
day we went into town by a local bus. Getting into the bus
is difficult without help. Luckily there were multiple Kenyan
ladies waving at busses to stop them for us, after which we
had to run and jump in the bus while it was slowing down and
took off immediately after we got in. The inside of one of the
busses was covered with Rick Ross pictures and only played
reggae music. Amazing.
We also encountered some big guys with guns in Nairobi.
While standing at the ATM, Rick took a picture of the building
and suddenly two guys, armed with the biggest guns you can
ever imagine, come out of the building taking Rick to the side
and start questioning him about the picture. Luckily he could
just remove it and didn’t get killed. Would have been a pity.
At the end of the trip when we got back in Nairobi we had
Kenya
some more fun.We stayed in the YMCA-hostel, which is always
fun, and enjoyed a meal in the Carnivore Restaurant. Carnivore
is a restaurant that serves meat roasted on swords above a
nice, big fire. We ate crocodile, ostrich, ox-balls, chicken liver
and other delicious types of meat. They tried to trick us by
serving some salads and bread, but we didn’t (completely) fall
for that!
Rick
BACKUP! That’s the word we used the most during our stay
in Kenya. The long roadtrips in an old but reinforced Kenyan
minivan are the perfect conditions for Dutch people to play
some games. During our six week of travelling through the
Mara Basin our favorite game was ‘Backup’, a mix of ‘Guess
Who?’ and other typical Dutch games. It was a lot of fun and a
good way of spending our time during the long trips, although
our American supervisor Chris and Kenyan driver Shadrack
thought otherwise. Each time that someone was getting headaches of thinking really hard which name it could be and the
moment that this person shouted out loud BACKUP when
he/she knew the name, we scared the shit out of Chris and
Shadrack. It was really funny how they reacted and they must
have thought: weird people these Dutch people!
Another nice car adventure happened when we traveled from
Bomet trough the Mau Forest. We had to install a weather
station up north of the forest. The duration of the trip for one
way was estimated on one hour by Chris. We left at 8 o’clock
in the morning and we arrived back at 8 o’clock in the evening.
What went wrong? Well, there is only one road through the
forest and we had to use that road to get to our destination.
The weather gods were not in our favor that day because it
rained the day before and the road was wet and slippery. The
road is made of heavy red clay and when it’s wet it gets really
sticky and slippery. The whole morning we were pushing and
pulling the minivan out of the ditches. Hard work! At 1 p.m. we
finally arrived at the site but we had only one hour to install
the station and get on our way back. Dark storm clouds were
visible above the forest so we needed to hurry up, otherwise
we probably would get stuck in the forest. On our way back it
was the same story; we were pushing the car instead of that
the car was driving us for 15 kilometers! Luckily a car fully
packed with Kenyans had the same troubles as us, so together
we managed to get our way out of the forest. A good example
of Kenyan-Dutch teamwork! After a long day we finally arrived
at the hotel, exhausted but with a nice adventure!
Joreen
Wild animals are not the only interesting mammals you find in
Kenya. The little human cubs aka children are also an interesting feature of the country. They come in different shapes and
sizes and levels of energy. Some common characteristics are:
small, curious and shy, although exceptions are possible. Some
of our encounters with them include them surrounding our
vehicle in a great herd, pressing their noses up the windows
and two of them climbing up the tree to get a better look at
the DEM camera (our camera on a 6m stick).These are typical
examples of the curious behaviors mentioned earlier.
We also observed the children in their natural habitat when
we were driving through villages and visiting a school terrain.
Here the children were entertained by some members of the
research team by swinging them round and round and decorating them with Dave’s birthday decorations.Another thing to
get these children’s attention was throwing balloons out of the
driving vehicle, to which they would then move as one.
Dave even tried to train the children as his helpers, by letting
them do the slope measurements and carry the DEM pole.
It is still unclear whether he succeeded. Further research is
recommended on this topic.
Annouk
During our fieldwork we made a lot of things: weather stations,
friends, water level loggers, photos, and of course we hope we
made a difference. But we also love the saying “If you can’t
break it, it cannot be fun”, so next to making stuff we also did
our best to mess some things up. Like a pick axe we lent from
very nice owners of a camp, to dig a hole to install a weather
station in. After taking a really bad ass looking picture with it,
Annouk managed to break it in half at the first strike. We also
45
Kenya
had some trouble with the local power outlets. Apparently you
cannot charge an American dremel, which happened to be the
very precious property of our supervisor Chris, in a Kenyan
socket. Unfortunately Guus figured that out after burning the
wires. The hardest thing to break however was Annouks head.
It had survived many bumpy rides, angry hippos and crocodiles
in the river, and even a very challenging and acrobatic tree
climbing session to install a time lapse camera where the buffalo’s wouldn’t twerk it. Right after that we had to hurry home
before dark, so she ran into the van, forgetting her head and
slamming it to the roof of the van, causing a big ditch in the
roof and a headache for the next few days.
We sure broke a lot of stuff in Kenya, but at least while doing
that we made some other things to: memories.
Guus
The nice thing about your stay in Kenya as a Mzungu (white
person), is that people compare you to celebrities wherever
you go, which makes you feel just a little special. When you
are walking the streets of Nairobi, you are a movie star, and
when you are going for a run, you are a famous football player.
You expect Kenyans to be used to running, since they win
most marathons. But when we were running they found it super-special. People were honking, screaming at you, laughing.
I never understood why. The same happened when we were
doing fieldwork. We had this boat to measure discharges and
bottom profiles, which drew a lot of attention. People could
stare at us all day. Staring is what Kenyans are good at. I think
the best vocal response we got was: “WTF mzungu!”
One of the things I will always remember is the stay at the
Maji camp, which is a research camp in the middle of a forest
in the Masai Mara. It is a bit like camping, which you might be
used to do with your parents in the south of France. There
even was an outdoor toilet on which you could properly sit
and shit. This however was during the day. At night, the wild
animals came to shelter in the forest. This was really great.You
could hear elephants, leopards, hippo’s and even lions from
very close. The problem of this gathering of animals was that
you could not go outside, so going to the toilet became problematic. This gives you two options: do it in a bottle, or stay
really close to your tent. However due to the bad hygiene in
Kenya, diarrhea is a common problem, which kind of forces
you out of your tent. This makes a night in the Maji camp so
much more of an adventure...
46
Sandra
The moment somebody says Maji Camp, immediately a lot
of great memories pop up. One especially always makes me
laugh. Annouk had the reputation of being startled very easily.
But one night she really proved that if something happened,
it wouldn’t be her to freeze and scream, what Chris always
claimed would happen. We were brushing our teeth next to
the tent when Sandra asked Annouk, “do you hear that?”. Annouk asked if Sandra was making a joke, but no, we really heard
it: the sawing sound of a panther in a nearby tree .The moment
Annouk realized that, she spit out her toothpaste and ran to
the entry of the tent! Once safely inside the tent, she could
relax again. However, in her fear and haste she turned out to
have thrown her toothbrush on the ground while running for
her live, which she found out the next morning when leaving
the tent…
The best food we had was also in Maji Camp since we could
cook it ourselves and it wasn’t as greasy as all the other food
we got. We found that food in Kenya could be summarized as
being greasy, or dry, or sweet, or all these things at the same
time. The people were also very good at giving something we
did not order. We learned very fast not to turn those things
down however, because maybe you would not get food at all
then that evening. Lunches were a great mix of Kenian Indian
chapattis with peanut butter, crisps, honey or tuna. We had a
picnic almost every day on the savannah between the buffalo’s
and wildebeests.
But the greatest thing on this trip was truly the company I
had. I want to thank my five group members for the great
adventure. And I want to thank them for being there for each
other when one of us was sad or sick.We had a lot of fun, good
discussions, serious conversations, ideas, and most of all, now
also great memories. S
Miscelaneous
Water related movies
Do you ever have those moments where you feel like you’re losing your passion for the water management world? Do you even need a
fancy hero to keep on working? Or have you ever had difficulties explaining your studies or your work to your friends? If it is true that 1
picture equals 1000 words, then let’s use 100000000 words to explain your story around water.
Author:
Athina Pappa
Choosing Pancakes Over Life?
The dilemma between pancakes or life is real for Harold Crick, whose life in Stranger
Than Fiction is suddenly interrupted by a voice narrating all events he is related to
– but he is not able to talk back. We in WAM are related to water, climate, and the
environment in general. How could we narrate events in movies that have to do with
what we care about? Would we speak about what happens after colossal climatic
change (Waterworld), claim that climate change is actually secretly promoted by
extra-terrestrials (The Arrival), or even suggest that (other) extra-terrestrials want
to eliminate humans because they’re destroying the planet (The Abyss)? Perhaps
these movies could have been relevant for our environmental dilemmas, but unfortunately there are a few issues. The amount of water Kevin Costner sails his boat on
is simply not available on Planet Earth. It would have been far more realistic if the
liquid-breathing technique would have killed Bud (which would have saved us the
Hollywood kiss at the end as well). And obviously we all know that the Vogons destroyed the Earth when constructing a hyperspatial express route – current Earth is
the spare copy.The movies that for me offer the most realistic narrative is the trilogy
Pirates of the Caribbean – and no, that is not because they use ships all the time.
Captain Jack Sparrow simply shows us how human society should be understood:
it is all planned out and simultaneously made up as we go along. By the way, Jules
Hilbert, a literature professor consulted by Harold in Stranger Than Fiction, suggests
that choosing between pancakes or life is “inextricably contingent upon the type of
life being led, and of course the quality of the pancakes”. Maurits Ertsen
A View to a Kill
The world famous spy, James Bond himself has once stumbled in to a severe water management
problem. In this 007 instalment, among other world-shattering problems, he had to face an evil
genius that was planning to blow up the lakes along Hayward and San Andreas faults in order
to put the whole of Silicon Valley underwater. Of course like any Hollywood action movies ever
produced, the bad guys always lose at the end and Silicon Valley remained safe. So, maybe we
can pitch the scenario tested in the class, about the possibility to flood Schiphol airport, to the
producers of the next James Bond movie!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
This one is especially for those superheroes-comic loving water managers to be.The Ninja Turtles are
four fictional teenage anthropomorphic turtles, which all so very well-trained in martial art.They have
taken on battle against criminals and aliens, but for some reasons decided to hide themselves from society, by living in New York storm sewer system. So, just in case that you, as the leading Water Manager
in our office, ever in need of new storm sewer system inspection techniques or any information about
wrong connections of pipes and leakages, leave some hundreds of ninja turtles in the sewer system,
feed them with pizza and get the information you need!
Titanic
Let’s not forget about Titanic, the world (in-)famous boat, which on its launching trip from United Kingdom to United States hit an iceberg and sank at the north Atlantic. But how exactly is
the role of a water manager related to that movie? An iceberg is part of the global water cycle
and is influenced by global warming. Glacier hydrology and field trips to glaciers for the risky
ones can be the new challenge for the water managers. Hey Water Managers, save the travellers
of north Atlantic from icebergs!
So, in conclusion: keep on studying water management and go save the world! Just in case if someone called you and ask you to
be the next movie hero ;) To be continued...
Want to contribute your idea about Water Management related Movies? Reach us at [email protected] and pitch us your selection
of movies. S
48
Recipee
Anaerobic egg
All who have spent some time in the lab of sanitary engineering have the same experience: the smell makes you hungry. The
odours of H2S and NH3 are simply irresistible. The century egg (or 1000-100 year old egg or pidan) is a Chinese culinary invention to add that fragrance to your dinner. By following the steps below you can make this delicacy yourself.
What turns the egg whites dark amber brown and the yolk dark purple is the anaerobic fermentation processes of the sea-salt
and hydroxides reacting with the proteins.There are many different recipes for the brine, with varying concentrations of salts and
even adding zinc and lead salts. The recipe below gives you a good start, but if you want to improve it, look for the papers about
pidan written by Palanivel Ganasen and Soottawat Benjakul to obtain the perfect structure of your yolk and “white” by adjusting
the concentrations of your muddy brine.
Author:
Frans Willem
Hamer
Ingredients:
18 fresh duck eggs (alternatively chicken or quail eggs).
For the muddy brine:
Chinese black tea
1.5kg Rice chaff
750ml wood ash
750ml charcoal ash
425g quicklime (CaO)
160g sea salt (adding Na, K and Mg)
Tools:
Large (tea)pot
A pH gauge
Gloves (latex or plastic)
A large plastic or porcelain mixing bowl (no metal!)
Another plastic bowl to hold the rice chaff
A large plate
A large clay container or pot
Enough soil and garden lime to fill the pot
Face mask (optional)
50
Procedure:
Make a very strong tea of 1 litre – about 1 cup of tea per 10
cups of water. Leave the tea to cool for four hours to get really
intense. Put on your gloves and your face mask!!! In the mixing
bowl, put the wood and charcoal ashes with the lime and the
sea salt. While mixing, add the tea until it reaches a muddy
consistency with which you can cover the eggs – you might
not need all the tea but don’t throw away the tea yet! Test the
pH with your pH meter – it should be above 12, if not add
some extra quicklime.
Place the eggs for 15 to 20 minutes in the caustic mud. Meanwhile, poor the rice chaff in the second bowl.Take out the eggs
– make sure that the eggs are well covered – and coat them
with the rice chaff. The eggs should be well covered with the
chaff as well, you might have to press it on a bit.
Put the eggs on a plate and leave them for a day in a cool place
to make the mud harden. Bury the eggs in the pot with the soil
and gardening lime. Poor any remaining tea over the soil. Leave
the eggs in the pot for three months. After three months, test
one egg and compare it to the picture. Leave them in longer
if necessary.
Your eggs are now ready for use. They are an excellent appetizer, go well with noodles and tofu and in your Chinese
seafood porridge. Or just eat them as a snack. And try making
your own blue-mayonnaise with the yolk!
Sudoku
Puzzles
Solutions previous issue
Big Water Management puzzle:
Sudoku:
51
Retouradres:
Dispuut Watermanagement
Stevinweg 1, k. 4.74
2628 CN, Delft
The Netherlands
+me
1
The Big Water Management Puzzle
u=i, -n
2
-l
3
-p
4
5
+a
6
-co
ff=v, jes=y
7
8
9
Dear Water Managers,
This big-watermangament puzzle is completely
related to the Millennium Development Goals.
Setting easy targets will not help you solve the
problem. However, to get you going, there are
some that are easy, but luckily there are difficult
ones as well.
Try to cooperate, since that will only improve
your chances of solving the puzzle. Finishing this
puzzle will make you definitely less naive.
Enjoy!