Meanwhile: Conferences and workshops

After the Deltanet conference in Ghent it was time for the Dutch 3rd National Delta Conference. Just to get the picture: imagine 1700 water professionals in a large convention  centre (Ahoy Rotterdam). The conference, organised by Wim Kuijken, the Dutch special commissioner for the delta. At the conference the state of affairs concerning the national delta programme is presented in plenary sessions and a 'delta parade'. One of the highlight for me was the panel discussion with Louise Fresco on sustainability and economy.

Though it also made me feel somewhat uncomfortable to be in the middle of a self-assuring show for the third year in a row, it did show the serious (and fruitful) effort that is being put into establishing this delta programme and the broad constituency this programme has in the Dutch professional water domain. Maarten Hajer (PBL) as wrap up speaker jokingly hinted in his closing speech that it is interesting in what shape next year’s conference will have (combining it with a pop-concert), given the growth rate of the past three years. This year the central theme was the question how civil society could be included in the process, in order to establish societal interest in the measures that the delta programme will propose in the coming years. It's might be a bit late in the process, but we'll see how this develops (and how ordinary men will be represented on next years' delta show!).

The week after the Delta Conference I went to the workshop ‘Workshop on Uncertainty and Climate Change Adaptation’, organised by the CIRCLE-2 project in Lisbon. At this workshop I presented my paper (co-authored by Arthur Petersen and Flip Wester) called ‘Engaging abundance in the Dutch delta: Climate Change and Ontological Politics’. Here you can find my prezi, the article will follow later, since it might be part of some special issue, somewhere. The workshop was extremely well organised and very interesting. In two day, in six sessions papers were discussed, all dealing with uncertainties and climate change adaptation (obviously), with a wide variety of approaches (meteorology, sociology, political sciences, economics, etc). Apart from the workshop content, and the wonderful and vibrant city of Lisbon, it was also very nice to learn about other perspectives on what’s happening at the science-policy interface in climate change adaptation. Check for example the video here on the serious game called ‘Sustainable delta’ in which you can ‘Experience the Future’. Check also the article with the wonderful title ‘the History of Futures’.

After all these organised event it is time to take up the gauntlet and organise our own workshop. On 2 December we will organise a workshop at the Institute for Water and Flood Management at BUET titled ‘Turning Tides?’. If you are around in Dhaka at that time and interested in participating, send an email to arjen[dot]zegwaard[at]wur[dot]nl. More info, including program will follow!

UPDATE Talking Climate Change and Uncertainties: today a report was published stating that our (NL's) policies do not cover all Climate Change risks.