Tineke Huizinga-Heringa, former Dutch minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM), has been named chairperson of the International Governing Board of Delta Alliance. Mrs Huizinga was already very familiar with the activities of Delta Alliance right from the beginning. It was she who announced the creation of the Delta Alliance on 16 December 2009 during the COP 15 in Copenhagen. She has also officially launched the Delta Alliance on 30 September 2010 in Rotterdam during the International Conference Deltas in Times of Climate Change. So we are very pleased that she accepted the invitation to occupy this position of chairperson, in which she succeeds Kees Slingerland, Managing Director of the Environmental Sciences Group of Wageningen UR.
The project “Comparative assessment of the vulnerability and resilience of 10 deltas” is carried out by Deltares, Alterra Wageningen UR, WWF and (potential) Delta Alliance wings. A generic framework is created to study the physical, ecological and socio-economic impacts and adaptive responses regarding the most affected sectors in deltas worldwide. Extensive descriptions of the Rhine- Meuse (The Netherlands), Mekong (Vietnam), Ciliwung (Indonesia), Ganges-Brahmaputra (Bangladesh), California Bay (USA), Mississippi (USA), Yangtze (China), Nile (Egypt), Incomati (Mozambique) and Danube (Romania) deltas are provided. The project reports can now be found on our website.
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From 2-4 March the conference ‘Delta 2011, Deltas under Climate Change: the challenges of adaptation’ was organized in Hanoi, Vietnam. Delta Alliance organized two one-hour sessions on the comparative assessment study. The Delta Alliance network was presented by the coordinator of the Vietnam Wing, Professor Le Quang Minh. With the main focus of the conference being on sustainable food production in Asian mega-deltas in times of climate change, it provided an excellent platform for communicating the objectives of Delta Alliance to the regional research community and exchanging ideas on delta-specific adaptation strategies.
On January 18, 2011 a definition workshop took place in Jakarta to develop the joint research programme ‘Jakarta Climate Adaptation Tools’. This program is recently submitted to ‘Knowledge for Climate’ by VU University Amsterdam, Wageningen University, Gadjah Mada University Yogyakarta and Bogor Agricultural University and is being prepared under the flag of Delta Alliance. The project will be implemented in close cooperation with the Indonesian Wing of Delta Alliance and LIPI. From January 2009 onwards Royal Haskoning SMC facilitated a definition phase, in which international and local alliances have been established and a knowledge agenda for the program was prepared. Until December 2014 research will be carried out by two Indonesian PhD’s and the application and exchange of newly developed tools is suggested to start.
From January 6- 11 a second Delta Alliance mission, consisting of Kees Slingerland, Wim van Driel and Eelco van Beek, to Bangladesh took place. The mission was linked to the 3rd International Conference on Flood and Water Management (ICWFM 2011) which was organized by the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. Delta Alliance representatives were invited to give a key note speech during the conference. The Institute of Water Modeling (IWM) organized a Delta Alliance meeting linked to the conference. IWM played a large role in establishing the Bangladesh Wing of Delta Alliance and functions as the coordinating agency. Mr. Emaduddin Ahmed has been assigned as the Wing coordinator in Bangladesh.
In the beginning of January a mission was undertaken to the two Delta Alliance Wings in the USA,
Mississippi (
mission report ) and
California (
mission report ). The mission started in the Mississippi Delta with a warm welcome from Wing coordinator Robert Twilley. After visiting the USGS Wetlands Centre in Lafayette and the Coastal Sustainability Studio at the LSU campus the Delta Alliance representatives went to California, where a visit was paid to BCDC in San Francisco and the Delta Stewardship Council in Sacramento. At both locations the activities to be undertaken in 2011 were discussed and are currently being worked out in an annual plan. (
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Delta Alliance is involved in various events around the world. Information on this events and other upcoming Delta events where Delta Alliance will be participating can be found on our website.