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Highlights:
PhD defence Ko: Ayeyarwady River health
January 2022 - Nyein Thandar Ko successfully defended her PhD. She joined TU Delft as a PhD student in May 2016. Her research was about monitoring the river health of the Ayeyarwady River in Myanmar using various techniques such as (citizen-science based) biomonitoring, remote sensing, and modelling. Her main supervisors were Dr. Thom Bogaard and Dr. Martine Rutten, active partners in our OKP programme. You can find her dissertation on the TU Delft repository. Congratulations Ko!
Graduation Diederik: Water quality monitoring in the Ayeyarwady basin
Diederik Spaans of the TU Delft succesfully presented and defended his Master thesis at the end of July 2021. Diederik researched to what extent changes in water quality can be measured in the Ayeyarwady basin in Myanmar. He also tried to identify requirements for a water quality monitoring system in the basin. He did so during his internship at Arcadis, while co-supervised by TU Delft OKP partners. Congratulations Diederik! You can download his thesis here.
MSc thesis defence Ileen: Satellite Soil Moisture Retrieval in Myanmar
On March 22nd, student Ileen de Kat (TU Delft) succesfully presented and defended her Master thesis. Ileen researched the validation and analysis of satellite retrieved soil moisture in the tropics by looking at a case study in Bago, Myanmar. She compared the downscaled soil moisture products of VanderSat (using the Land Parameter Retrieval Model) to an in-situ soil moisture network. This network was partially installed by Ileen herself during her fieldwork in Bago in early 2020. Congratulations Ileen! You can download her thesis here.
MSc thesis defence Huck: Dynamic morphology of the Sittaung estuary in Myanmar
On January 29th, TU Delft MSc student Huck de Haas succesfully defended his thesis. Huck researched the effect of the large incoming tide and storm events on the bank erosion of the Sittaung estuary (in Myanmar) and to what extent this erosion can be simulated with a numerical model. He carried out his research at Arcadis in collaboration with Deltares and TU Delft. Prior to his thesis, Huck also spent many month in Yangon, Myanmar, to carry out his internship and fieldwork. You can download his thesis here.
Presentation TU Delft and HUNRE (Vietnam) at Nuffic OKP Partner Days
On Monday the 23rd of November our project partners Juliette Eulderink (TU Delft) and Thi Van Le Khoa (HUNRE) contributed to the thematic OKP Partner Day session on ‘COVID-19: A Force for Change’. This session, organized by Nuffic, explored the shared challenges and opportunities the current COVID-19 situation has brought forth for those involved in Nuffic-funded projects.
Juliette and Khoa gave a presentation on managing Institutional Collaboration Projects in times of COVID-19, drawing examples from OKP ‘Climate Proof Vietnam’ and OKP ‘Higher Education in Full Flow Myanmar’. They talked about how activities have shifted to online or hybrid due to the pandemic, such as online workshops and webinars and distance research support. They also presented the many valuable lessons learned in the past months, for example that the creation of good digital (educational) products allows for long-term and widespread re-use. They concluded their presentation with their future vision for institutional collaboration, in which they hope there will be a lower threshold to quick communication with partners abroad, as well as an easier exchange between all institutions within and outside of the Netherlands.
You can watch the recording here and download their presentation here.
Innovative, low-cost wave measurements at Say Tun Island
May 2020 - The beautiful Say Tan Island is surrounded by hundreds of other islands with coral reefs and beaches. To make it possible for small cruises and yachts to visit the islands a jetty has to be designed. To understand the dynamics of the ocean, a measurement campaign with a WaveDroid was executed just in front of the coast.
Read more about this project here.
Mapping water quality in lakes in Myanmar using aquatic drones
April 2020 - Robbert de Lange is an MSc student Water Management from TU Delft, and was in Myanmar from February until April to measure the lake quality at different locations using a drone. He did this project in cooperation with INDYMO. INDYMO is a Dutch start-up that works in the field of the management of water resources and water quality. INDYMO focuses on innovative ways of monitoring water quality and ecology using underwater and water surface drones equipped with water quality sensors, sonar and video cameras.
Read more about this project here.
Chindwin River Expedition
February 2020 - Have you ever considered to walk 500 km along a river to collect water quality data? Manual Huber will start his Chindwin River Expedition this week. With his expedition he aims to create a better understanding of the rivers water quality, but also he would like to unite the knowledge of local communities, institutions and universities. Curious where he is right now? Read more about his expedition here.
Internet of Things Workshop – “One simple sensor can tell you a lot of relevant information about your water system”
January 2020 - Professor Nick van de Giesen together with Dirk van der Lubbe-San Juan visited Yangon to give a 2-day workshop at the Yangon Technological University (YTU) on so-called “internet of things”. A seemingly abstract concept, but actually everywhere we are surrounded by chips, devices and sensors that can talk to us and that can talk to each other.
Nominated for MSc Thesis price 2019: Juliette Eulderink
December 2019 - Each year the KNW (Dutch Water Network) gives students the opportunity to stand up and nominates the best MSc Thesis projects of the year. The second price went to Juliette Eulderink (TU Delft) with her research on 'Silenced Rivers' in Myanmar. She did research on the impacts of large-scale hydropower projects on the ecohydrology of the Myitnge and Myittha rivers in Myanmar.
Read her thesis here.
Measuring water quality with a smartphone in Myanmar
2019 - Over the past two years, the latest Dutch innovations in smart water management have been rolled out in Myanmar. In doing so, researchers and students from Delft University of Technology, together with the business community were able to turn the technological backwardness of the Asian country into an advantage, say programme director Marjan Kreijns and project manager Lindsey Schwidder of VPdelta. "It is a paradise for engineers."
Myanmar Struggles to Cope in the Aftermath of Catastrophic Floods
July 2018 - Large areas of Myanmar are struggling to cope in the aftermath of heavy monsoon floods that have killed at least 16 people, including 3 soldiers involved in rescue operations. According to the latest figures, more than 140,000 people in several states of the southeast Asian nation have been displaced and forced to seek shelter in one of 263 makeshift camps set up by the country’s National Natural Disaster Management Committee.
Charting the Irrawaddy river with balloons and gps trackers
March 2017 - Imagine a wide river in Asia with water so clean you can drink it. This river runs through Myanmar, a country which is developing fast after having been cut off from the outside world for decades. Urbanisation and industry are accelerating. That is good news for the economy and the standard of living but what will it do to the quality of the water? where and how will it be affected and how would any future pollutant spread in the river? TU Delft researchers Thom Bogaard, Rolf Hut and Martine Rutten research such questions in Myanmar. On their latest visit the team charted the Irrawaddy river, helped by local students and organisations. Among their luggage this time: 400 balloons, 15 GPS trackers and a pile of Dutch bicycle lights.
Environmental impact of Bagan river project
July 2015 - Every year, Myanmar is confronted with droughts, flooding and other water-related problems. In order to tackle these issues and strengthen the position of the Dutch private sector in the region, the governments of the Netherlands and Myanmar concluded an agreement on integrated water management in 2013.
