Researchers of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft, The Netherlands), UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, the Deltares research institute and specialist consultancy and the KWR Water Cycle Research Institute have set up the Delft Urban Water research platform.
By combining expertise in the field of urban water they are aiming to tackle future problems of increasing urbanisation, flooding and a worldwide shortage of good quality water.
Urban water
Water is crucial for the development of every city. All over the world, cities are confronted with increased and uncontrolled urbanisation, higher risks of flooding, scarcity of water for industry, households and ecosystems, rising pollution, ground subsidence, climate change and energy shortages. In addition, ever higher demands are being placed on our living environment, and citizens are becoming more outspoken in standing up for their rights. At the same time, we have more and more technologies at our disposal for measurement, processing information and purifying water for multiple use. New insights and developments are also making a contribution to reducing the widespread deprivation in the fields of water, sanitation and flooding in developing countries.
Metabolism
Excess rainwater has to be dealt with effectively, but it is also a source of high quality water. Energy and fertilisers can be recovered from waste water on a local level. Urban water is increasingly important for warming houses, or cooling them through their roofs. With the use of new measurement and regulation technologies, information systems and institutional innovations, water is becoming a key controlling medium in the urban metabolism.
Joining forces
To give this future concrete form, the Delft Urban Water platform, together with its partners TU Delft, UNESCO-IHE, Deltares and KWR Water Cycle Research Institute, is bringing together the experience and expertise of a host of researchers from a diversity of disciplines. More than twenty academic chairs, with over 100 PhD students linked to them, will be carrying out research related to ‘Urban Water’. The setting up of the platform creates the possibility to efficiently and dynamically integrate the various levels of scale of buildings, neighbourhoods and cities and the range of technologies.
Water cycle
In the city of the future construction will be much more flexible, and water in the city will be utilised more efficiently. The water chain is being transformed into a water cycle that, linked with energy provision, is embedded in the urban infrastructure. Together with industry, advisory agencies and other institutions around the world, researchers at the Delft Urban Water platform are developing innovative concepts and technologies at the cutting edge of their disciplines, as well as integrated solutions for the city of today and tomorrow.
More information
Contact:
- Prof. J.B. (Jules) van Lier, J.B.vanLier@tudelft.nl, (015) 27 81615
- Roy Meijer, TU Delft Science Information Officer, r.e.t.meijer@tudelft.nl, (015) 2781751, 06-14015008
More information
