Room for Rivers: Perspectives on River Basin Management

Dirk Sijmons

Senior advisor, founding director of H+N+S Landscape architects, emeritus professor of Landscape Architecture

Delft University of Technology

Dirk Sijmons (1949) is one of the founders of H+N+S Landscape-architects. At the office he was responsible for regional plans and research projects. H+N+S received the Prince Bernard Culture award in 2001. In 2002 he received the Rotterdam-Maaskant award and in 2007 the prestigious Edgar Doncker award for his contribution to ‘Dutch Culture’. His book publications in English are = Landscape (1998), Greetings from Europe (2008), Landscape and Energy (2014), Moved Movement, (2015) and Room-for-the-River (2017). Sijmons was appointed first State Landscape Architect of the Netherlands (2004-2008) and in that capacity chair of the Quality-team Room-for-the-Rivers. He held the chair of Environmental Design (2008-2011) and that of Landscape Architecture (2011-2015) at TU-Delft. He was curator of IABR--2014 themed Urban-by-Nature. At the World Design summit 2017 in Montreal, he received the Global IFLA sir Geoffrey Jellicoe award.

Martine Rutten

dr. ir.

Delft University of Technology

Martine Rutten is associate professor Water Management and Climate adaptation. She has a background in civil engineering with specializations Hydraulic Engineering (ETHZurich) and Water resources management (TUDelft) and a PhD degree on remote sensing for water resources management. Parallel to her PhD she developed education programs for Integrated water resources management at Lentiz Vocational university, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences and universities abroad. This broad integrated perspective is also reflected in her research portfolio which spans a wide set of topics, from nexus modelling, to optimal control to citizen science. She has a strong background in transdisciplinary learning for water resources management and vast experience with learning communities and living labs.

In September 2019 she started the Delta Futures lab. The Delta Futures lab is a multidisciplinary network for MSc-students, staff and practice with the ambition to become interdisciplinary leaders in spatial design, engineering and governance of deltas. The Lab unites master students, researchers and professionals in multidisciplinary projects. It enriches and supports master students in becoming the mission-oriented engineers that future delta societies need. More information can be found on deltafutureslab.org

She is also acting as scientific lead and learning community coordinator for the theme Climate Adaptation at The Green Village. At TGV she conducts transdisciplinary research together with different academic disciplines, applied universities, vocation education, entrepreneurs, municipalities, water boards, provinces and other actors in this field. More information can be found on thegreenvillage.org/

Ellen Minkman

Dr.ir.

Delft University of Technology

Ellen Minkman is an assistant professor in governance of socio-technical systems. In her research she focusses on decision making and governance of water and delta management.

Ellen Minkman studied Civil Engineering and Science Communication at TU Delft. In 2021 she obtained a PhD in public administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her PhD researched focussed on policy transfer of Adaptive Delta Management practices from the Netherlands to Asian countries. During her PhD, she furthermore worked part-time as water trainee at the National Water Traineeship for 2 years.

Dr. Minkman's research concentrates on water governance. Her research interests include decision making and governance for future-proof urban deltas as well as governance transitions in water management and related policy fields (e.g. agriculture, energy). The key research theme is delta management, especially in relation to climate change adaptation and international development cooperation. Conceptually, her research focusses on policy transfer, organizational learning and knowledge sharing.

Dr. Minkman is involved in the H2020 project ENCLUDE on energy citizenship as well as the AGRICOAST research on the (governance) transition to climate adaptive agriculture in Dutch coastal regions. In addition, she is part of the Closer Cities research initiative for optimizing urban knowledge sharing.