Adapting to climate change: examples from the Netherlands

Higher water levels and more space for water will fundamentally change the way our coastal lowlands are being managed. Appropriate conservation, adaptation and mitigation actions need to take place in the context of sustainable development. In the Netherlands, adaptation measures focus on the water management system as well as the spatial planning. The selection of adaptation measures, mainly depends the type of land use. For the three major types of land types, i.e. the low-lying peatlands in the western part of the country, the higher sandy soil areas in the east and southeast and the marine clay areas in the reclaimed polder areas, adaptation measures, for both agriculture and nature, adaption strategies are discussed

Advice drainage plan Farm 70 : Salamá, Puntarenas, Costa Rica

This report presents a “second” opinion of the drainage plan for the teak plantation Farm 70, in Costa Rica. The Dutch Foundation Terra Vitalis has requested this second opinion on the drainage plan prepared by the BARCA Company for Farm 70, Puntarenas, Costa Rica. This teak farm is located in the southwest region of Costa Rica, a region characterized by high rainfall, especially in the period May to November. The BARCA Company is developing the area as a teak reforestation plantation. Because of the heavy rainfall intensity, flat topography, soils with low hydraulic conductivity and impermeable layers close to the soil surface, an intensive drainage system is required. The report discusses options to reduce the risk of high water tables in this teak plantation (71.56 ha

Demand Driven Education: Report on the Education Innovation Project 'Design in Land and Water Management in a Demand Driven Learning Environment'

In the fifth period of the academic year 2008/2009 the chair groups Irrigation and Water Engineering (IWE) and Land Degradation and Development (LDD) organized a new course, i.e. Design in Land and Water Management 2 (IWE- 21312). The course is part of the BSc program International Land and Water Management (BIL). The decision to develop the course can be seen as a measure to ensure that BIL-graduates understand, can analyze, and are able to engage in and to advise on typical design processes as part of their professional practice as irrigation and soil- and water conservation experts

Methoden voor de bepaling van grondwaterstanden: kan het beter?

Tijdens de extreme zomer van 2018 zijn we gewend geraakt aan nieuwsberichten over grondwater. Maar hoe worden grondwaterstanden eigenlijk gemeten,en hoe worden die metingen verwerkt tot grondwaterkaarten? Dit artikel zetalle gangbare methoden op een rij, inclusief mogelijke foutenbronnen. Deresultaten maken duidelijk dat een onafhankelijk validatiemeetnet voor grondwatermetingen geen overbodige luxe i

Decision support system for peatland management in the humid tropics

Large areas of globally important tropical peatland in Southeast Asia are threatened by land clearance, degradation and fire, jeopardising their natural functions as reservoirs of biodiversity, carbon stores and hydrological buffers. Many development projects on tropical peatlands have failed because of lack of understanding of the landscape functions of these ecosystems. Utilisation of these peatland resources for agriculture or other land use requires drainage which, unavoidably, leads to irreversible loss of peat through subsidence, resulting in severe disturbance of the substrate, CO2-emissions and problems for cultivation. To assist planners and managers in wise use of these tropical peatlands a decision support system (DSS) has been developed. This DSS, which is based on a GIS application, combines the Groundwater Modelling Computer Programme PMWIN with expert knowledge on subsidence, land use and water management. The DSS can be used to predict the long-term effects of different types of land use, e.g. peat swamp forest, sago or oil palm plantations, on the lifetime and associated CO2 release of these tropical peatlands. The type of land use dictates the required depth of the groundwater table, which on its turn has a significant effect on the sustainability of the peatland. Therefore, special attention should be paid when deciding which type of land use to pursuit. The Decision Support System (DSS) will help to improve the decision-making process. The groundwater model PMWIN was selected because it maintains a good balance between the complexity of the model (esp. regarding to its input data requirements) and the availability of input data. The groundwater model was calibrated using data from the Balingian Area, Central Sarawak, Malaysia. The model was used to predict, based on a given land use scenario, the ratio between surface and groundwater runoff, the depth of the groundwater table and recharge and discharge zones of the peat dome. Various land use scenarios, each with its own specific water management requirements, were developed and used to predict the long-term changes in ground level and associated CO2 release. For each scenario the following outcome was generated: time span after which the water management systems have to be deepened, time span after which gravity drainage is no longer possible, time span for peat disappearance. Final results are presented in the form of maps generated by the GIS application. These maps serve as a communication tool with stakeholders to demonstrate what the hydrological effects are on for instance a certain land use type and drainage system lay-out