The Netherlands faces urgent social issues. We invest a large part of our management capacity, political decision-making, and information sources in finding and facilitating the implementation of sustainable, safe and viable solutions to the threats facing our vulnerable delta and its inhabitants. These threats originate from social trends and natural changes: growing urbanisation and greater mobility leads to increasingly complex spatial development. We want to live, work and enjoy our leisure time, and all these functions must be accessible, of high quality, cause no disruption to ourselves or others, and take sustainability into account. What is more, our physical and natural surroundings are liable to change, due to climate change, land subsidence, sea level rises, and flooding. All these demands and changes lead to problems related to construction above and below ground, utilisation of water and soil, water management, and spatial planning issues. Delft Cluster is involved with the impact of infrastructural interventions on natural soil and water systems, and how to deal with these effects. Soft soil presents an additional challenge when building and maintaining infrastructure and built-up areas.

Effective solutions

Society expects government to provide effective solutions: the most appropriate answer to the questions, at a reasonable price, in accordance with a predictable process, and with the minimum of disruption. Such effective solutions are rare. We must improve our ability to forecast in relation to natural and building processes, and we must understand the predictability of these processes better. The life cycle of materials and structures in relation to the subsurface and water systems must be modelled more accurately, models must be validated more effectively, and they should be used more effectively as a tool for managers and decision-makers (sustainable development): disruptions to the surroundings and other negative environmental effects must be reduced (viability).

Engineering knowledge

Engineering knowledge plays a key role in the management and improvement of all aspects of delta problems. By investing in development of this knowledge, we can help society find effective solutions to today’s problems and those of tomorrow. Such solutions can only be developed by working together with those companies and governments that implement and use them, gain experience from them, and who provide developers with feedback.

The BSIK initiative makes it possible to tackle these problems, using both scientific and non-scientific disciplines.