Rivers and Deltas

The project aims to bring the water scientists (from multiple disciplines) and media on one platform to facilitate water diplomacy in the Brahmaputra Basin. It engages with key media personnel at local, national and regional levels to discuss various aspects of the basin. The media-science dialogues play a crucial role in building capacity and disseminating accurate information among the stakeholders for well informed and responsible reporting. It reflects on the broader question toward shared water issue of “are media and science part of the problem or part of the solution?”.  The outcomes are in the form of media reports, video stories and podcasts. Social media has been utilized to share information with the stakeholders regarding upcoming events and updates regarding the project. A podcast series ‘Voices of Brahmaputra’ was produced to understand and communicate local communities’ association with the river.

Learn more by visiting the project website

The objective of this project is to archive sustainable and effective land and water governance to not only increase aqua-agricultural production but also maximize flood retention capacity of the floodplains to maintain ecosystem service and exploiting benefits from floodwaters. This project thereby aims to provide strong scientific evidence for decision makers in adopting suitable flood-based farming system for floodplain preservation and restoration in the Mekong delta (Vietnam and Cambodia). It is expected to benefit not only the local communities, but also the promotion of nature-based agriculture production in the Lower Mekong. The project, a south-south collaboration project is led by Vietnam National University in collaboration with the University of Phnom Penh amongst others. 

This project aims to address the most widespread problem linked to groundwater exploitation in heavily populated coastal aquifers, namely that of saltwater intrusion. Uncontrolled exploration of such groundwater bodies by large water users leads to groundwater quality problems that directly affect domestic supply and crop productivity. Within this project, guidelines for groundwater exploitation and managed aquifer recharge are being developed for the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and the Great Maputo Aquifer in Mozambique. Project outcomes are expected to have major impacts through shifts towards more sustainable pumping practices of the coastal aquifers, optimized participatory groundwater salinity monitoring, information-based groundwater resources management, and facilitated adoption of measures that, through their implementation, will contribute to improving water security and related socio-economic conditions.

Learn more by visiting the project website

A4Labs aims to co-develop, test, share and compare with farmers and partners methodologies to create a reliable and sustainable source of water for agriculture in three semi-arid to arid regions of Sub-Sahara Africa, using water underlying dry river beds and upscale these methodologies for use at river basin scale while maintaining sustainable abstraction limits and minimising negative social and ecological consequences. They do so by developing experimental sites (“living labs”) where smallholder farmers, practitioners, agricultural extension officers, water engineers, students and private sector actors co-develop new (technological, agronomic, financial, market) approaches of accessing and using shallow groundwater for productive purposes, and evaluate the hydrological, social and economic effects and impacts. Co-learning will be institutionalised at the sites, and between the sites, through careful monitoring and evaluation by farmers and others, assisted by local students.

Project partners: 

• ACACIA Water - The Netherlands
• Practica - The Netherlands
• Mekelle University - Ethiopia
• Oxfam Mozambique - Mozambique
• Instituto Superior Politécnico de Gaza - Mozambique
• Oxfam NOVIB - The Netherlands
• IHE Delft - The Netherlands

This project was implemented from 2016 until 2022. Learn more by visiting the project website or contact the project leader Prof. Pieter van der Zaag ([email protected]).

The Hydro-Social Deltas research project aimed to understand the dynamic interplay between hydrological processes (flooding, riverbank erosion, waterlogging) and social processes (demographic shifts, urbanization processes, governance) in the urbanizing delta of Bangladesh and the urbanized delta of the Netherlands. Obvious differences aside, both countries are involved in long-term climate change-induced system planning in dynamic deltas. The advanced understanding of hydro-social interactions supported policies and strategies for disaster risk reduction and sustainable development. Notably, the project aimed to help:

• shift existing simplifying policy discourse on climate induced displacement or migration ('climate refugees') and negative perceptions of urban migration as related to poverty and crime;
• improve the implementation and coordination between existing policies;
• reduce vulnerability for migrants and support sustainable pro-poor development approaches in Bangladesh;
• increase flood resilience in the Netherlands and Bangladesh.

For a visualization of the project view this video, or read the article ‘Flows of water, flows of people’.

The Hydro-social deltas project was led by IHE Delft with partners in Bangladesh and The Netherlands. It was funded under the Urbanising Delta’s of the World programme part of NWO, and co-funded by DUPC2. The project was implemented from 2017 until 2020.