Tidal river management in East and West.

Problems in tidal rivers such as the Hari-Mukteswari and Kobadak river in Bangladesh are much related to 1) water and 2) sediment. If we look carefully at the Dutch and Belgian delta , we can find water and sediment also as a major cause of trouble in tidal rivers. The Westerscheldt, the Eems and other water bodies under tidal influence (such as the seaport of Oostende) need to be carefully managed in order to prevent problems caused by an accumulation of sediment. Often, this involves dredging.

If problems in the two countries show similarities, can the solutions be similar as well? In Oostende, a very large tidal basin is constructed in order to keep the harbor free of sediment (picture 1). In Paal (Zeeuwsch Vlaanderen), a small tidal basin (“Spuikom” in Dutch) keeps the harbor of Watersport Vereniging Saefthinghe open by flushing it twice daily (picture 2).

Can strategically placed tidal basins be used in other tidal rivers in the Netherlands to influence the rate and location of sedimentation? Could tidal basins form an alternative solution to the siltation problems in the tidal river of the Eems, instead of creating an artificial island (picture 3) and continued dredging? Or are the two countries and the rivers not comparable?

Picture 1: a large spuikom in Oostende that fills up during high tide, and flushes the harbor during low tide.

Picture 2: a "spuikom" in action in Paal (Zeeuwsch Vlaanderen), used to help keep the harbor free of sediment.

Picture 3: newspaper article describing the plans to build an artificial island to help the river Eems. 

Full article: trouw.nl/tr/nl/4332/Groen/article/detail/3366142/2012/12/20/Nieuw-Waddeneiland-moet-natuur-in-de-Eems-redden.dhtml

Another Man's World

Just another day,
In another man’s world,
Not mine...

With 2012 coming to an end I want to look into the rear view mirror just a little bit. A little looking back on what I’ve done over this last year? Going through my notebook it seems that it has been a lively year. I’ve presented my research ideas at various occasions, at the IVM/VU University, at an ICCWaDS workshop at ZEF in Bonn, at the Water@Leeds group, to Ken Oye (MIT), to WUR-ILW students, at the Bangladesh stakeholder workshop in Dhaka and of course meetings with the WOTRO project team. Eventually this has resulted in a finished research proposal that I’ve submitted to the WASS research school. In all this has been a very inspiring period in which I’ve navigated across many epistemological positions. Though this is a wearing, confusing and in the eyes of some utterly useless (I still don’t agree) process, this eventually resulted in a approach for my research that I think is quite useful (and very exciting!). The two main sources of inspiration are Paul Feyerabend’s notion of Abundance and the idea of Ontological Politics (see e.g. the work by Annemarie Mol and John Law). If you are interested in reading my proposal, please let me know and I’ll send it to you. I cannot put it online because some parts of it are currently under review.
After the summer holidays I shifted my attention from thinking about doing research to doing actual research (about thinking). This has resulted in two papers which will hopefully be published next year. The first paper is a further deepening and elaboration of earlier work that I’ve done on the Philipsdam in the Netherlands. The second paper, which I was able to present at a very inspiring workshop in Lisbon, deals with the nature of Climate Change as an actor in Dutch Delta management. At the moment I have started two new case studies, one in collaboration with the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency on the future of the Dutch south-western Delta and the other on histories and trends in Bangladeshi Delta management.

Before shutting down my computer for this year I want to misuse this blog for thanking just a few of the people that contributed to making the past year such an exciting year. Why should I wait with thanking people until I can write the acknowledgements in my thesis? Thank you Flip and Arthur for your ever inspiring support. Margreet, thank you for making time to listen to my stream of consciousness. Bert for the many reflexive lunch walks. The WOTRO-team, IWE PhD discussion group (let’s revive this initiative!) and the Science and Values cluster at the IVM-VU for lovely discussions.

I am truly looking forward in continuing this wonderful journey called a Phd in 2013!

Merry Christmas to all!

Arjen

For all those interested in the multiple ontologies, multiple realities stuff, and for those of you interested in obscure Scottish pop-music, check out the song Another Man’s World by a band called Immaculate Fools.

Three sides of the delta

The last two weeks the research team enjoyed an excellent time in Bangladesh. I’d like to share with you some personal impressions and lessons learned from the trip.

The workshop on the 2nd of December confirmed the interest in and opportunities for research on greener flood management solutions and strategies, from a Bangladesh perspective. Especially in the parallel discussion it showed that this would fill a gap between water related research versus more environmental related research. On the other hand, it also became clear that the terminology needs some tuning: despite attempt to define ‘green flood management’ it was still understood in multiple ways; as in green economy (solutions contributing to sustainable economic growth), green growth (measure to ensure higher agricultural production to feed the country), to considering the environmental impacts of planned flood infrastructures. So, my first task is to re-check terminology and possible alternative formulations of the research theme.

The second part of the trip involved field visits to the Jessore-Khulna region. It was great to have an impression of the delta, which reminded me also about my work in Vietnam some years ago. Very remarkable to see (nearly) the same practices, rice and fish production, similar kind of houses, and the general 'delta looks'. We visited some of the beels in which Tidal River Management is on-going, took place or is planned. TRM is a nice example of ecosystem-based flood management, as the practice departs from the dynamics in the river and broader ecosystem functioning simultaneously. Especially the social dimension of TRM is interesting: people developing, hijacking, promoting, opposing the concept. I also enjoyed the discussions with Mahmouda, Farhana and Arjen on our individual research plans and shared interests. We also had a intensive session in which we developed an outline for a joint paper.

To conclude this short story, for me the trip ‘joined’ the three sides of the delta: the Netherlands, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

 

Complexity as understatement

Today is Hartal day. For those of you who are not familiar with this bizarre phenomenon, a hartal is a strike which immobilizes an entire country. If you ignore a hartal, or if you accidently end up at the wrong place at the wrong time you can face brutal violence (last Sunday 3 people lost their lives). Since my arrival to Bangladesh, two and a half weeks ago, this is now the third (!) hartal. Today is thus the third day in which we cannot go into the field, and interviews have been cancelled (these days turned out to be very effective for doing work on our joint paper).

Having packed my bag for tonight’s flight I have now some time to reflect upon the last two weeks.One of the things that, apart from the insane hartals, has struck me over the last two weeks is the incredible sensitivity and dynamics of the Delta. When looking at the past, as I’ve tried to do in the Dhaka workshop, but also when looking at the current state of affairs in the South West delta, as we’ve done in the Khulna trip, it became more and more clear that in this Delta physically and socially only a small thing is needed for a systemic change. Physically this clearly visible in the (literally) meters of sediments that are deposited in river beds and tidal basins. Socially this is for example shown by the incident last June in which members of parliament visiting the area where attacked and their cars being set on fire.

In all this trip was very interesting, intensive, fruitful but also a bit bewildering. In the field I work in, people write about beautiful terms like wickedness, complexity and resilience. My feeling after this trip is that for Bangladesh complexity is an understatement...

Turning Tides? The Dhaka workshop

Sunday 2 december the Institute of Water and Flood Management of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in Dhaka, hosted the first Delta Lessons seminar of our research programme. This turned out to be a very interesting day. After a warm welcome by our host dr. Munsur Rahman  project leaders Shah Alam Khan and Flip Wester started the day with an introduction titled: "Turning Tides".

Flip Wester "Turning Tides?" from arjenzegwaard

After this intruduction the 4 Phd's presented very briefly their research proposals and first results of their studies:

Farhana Ahmed: "Learning from our futures"

Farhana Ahmed "Learning from our futures" from arjenzegwaard

Martijn van Staveren: "Feeling Blue? Get Green"

Martijn van Staveren "Feeling blue get green" from arjenzegwaard

Mahmuda Mutahara: "Towards preaching what is practiced?"

Mahmuda Mutahara "towards preachin what is practiced?" from arjenzegwaard

Arjen Zegwaard: "Can we know a delta?"

Arjen Zegwaard "Can we know a Delta?" from arjenzegwaard

In the afternoon two presentation where done on water management practices in the South West Delta of Bangladesh, one by the programme's external advisor Hamidul Huq and on by two MSc student from Wageningen.

Hamidul Huq Ïnto the Beel"

Hamidul Huq "Into the beel" from arjenzegwaard

Leendert de Die en Jan van Minnen on Tidal River Management:

Leendert de Die and Jan van Minnen "TRM" from arjenzegwaard

After the series of presentation the group was divided over 4 sub-group to discuss the concent and ideas with the four individual PhD students.