There are near 20,000 people working in the water sector in the Netherlands. They need to know everything from where the water flows to where building projects are located. That’s where the WaterViewer comes in.
The WaterViewer online portal provides access to projects and information on the Dutch delta done at TU Delft. Using an interactive map, it brings together a raft of existing diverse, fragmented information and enables the user to gain new knowledge and insights. The platform aims to address the integrated water management needs the water sector in the Netherlands. It offers layered access to deeper hydraulic engineering and science also usable by policy makers and specialists from other fields. WaterViewer’s originator, PhD researcher Rijcken (CEG) qualified as an industrial design engineer at TU Delft in 2003. “After graduating I worked on the design of floating buildings and cities. Then my focus shifted from how to make a floating city to why you would want to do that. This led to studying water systems as a whole at the regional and national scale,” he said. “But as an industrial engineer I am trained to make interfaces which connect hard engineering to users, so my work now brings it all together by building this user interface.”
Californian version
Jack Hogan, a visiting NAF-Fulbright Fellow from the USA, worked for six years in the US Army Corps of Engineers, the equivalent to Rijkswaterstaat, the government infrastructure agency of the Netherlands. He witnessed the way water management in the US often works in silos, a huge obstacle to integrated solutions to problems. But he’s convinced a tool like the WaterViewer could help to address this.
Marian Szabo, who is finalising an MSc in computer science, came on board two years ago to do the programming. “I was hired for 100 hours to make a prototype, but the work expanded,” he said. He checks the feasibility of the performance after coding the requirements, for example to make sure things function quickly enough. “The WaterViewer supports professionals with information aligned with their work and projects,” said Rijcken. “We have an algorithm behind it that customises a selection for the user.”
The WaterViewer incorporates semantic web automation that translates real life concepts into a format understandable to computers, which then enables the user to make advanced queries of the data. This powerful flexibility linking ideas and concepts will also allow it to be linked to other systems.
The platform has a stylised map, inspired by the concept of the famous London Underground design, with only relevant data giving the user a clear overview, enabling quick comparisons and navigation of complex water systems. The platform also involves a large human element, the DeltaLinks magazine, made up of expert authors that curate the content of the portal. So the platform combines web technologies and real world human collaboration.
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