Delta Commissioner gives W.J. van den Bremen Lecture on the Delta Programme
On 7 May, Delta Commissioner Wim Kuijken gave the W.J. van den Bremen Lecture on the subject of the Delta Programme at the University of Groningen, an institution with a four-hundred-year-long history. The W.J. van den Bremen Lecture is given every year and is organised by Ibn Battuta, the student society of the Spatial Sciences Faculty.
In his lecture, the Delta Commissioner spoke about the current state of affairs of the Delta Programme, modernisation in the fields of water and spatial planning and the upcoming Delta Decisions. He also emphatically pointed out the crucial function of knowledge and innovation within the programme.
Johan Woltjer (Professor of Regional Planning & Development) was a co-speaker at the lecture. He specifically examined the importance of monitoring in the adaptive approach and the use of indicators: what key information do you use in the monitoring and to be able to change course in the approach in good time? The Delta Commissioner stated that it was indeed important to list these indicators and to assign them a place in the monitoring system. They are included in part in the delta scenarios which are periodically revised. In the years ahead, attention will be paid to this in the Delta Programme. The students put questions about the lifespan of the flood defences, the Delta Fund, and the role of sustainable energy in the Delta Programme.
Until he retired in 1996, Willem Jan van den Bremen (1931-2003) was Professor of Economic and Social Geography at the University of Groningen. For several years he was also Dean of the Spatial Sciences Faculty. After his death in 2003, the student society Ibn Battuta decided to organise an annual lecture dedicated to his memory and in gratitude for the groundbreaking work that Van den Bremen carried out for his faculty and geography in general.
The first W.J. van den Bremen Lecture was given in June 2004 by former minister Jan Pronk. Since then, the lectures have been given by numerous renowned leaders in their field including Henk Bleker, Mels Crouwel and Adri Duijvestijn.