Willem Ottevanger

Willem currently works as a researcher/advisor of large scale river-hydrodynamics and -morphodynamics at Deltares in Delft, which is an independent research institute for applied research in the field of water and subsurface.

He received his MSc in Applied Mathematics at the University of Twente working on a Discontinuous Galerkin 1D shallow water and sediment transport model for the Paraná River. After this he worked at the WL | Delft Hydraulics at the Rivers and Inland Shipping department, and later completed a PhD in Civil Engineering on the topic on the parameterisation of strongly curved shallow bend flow for use in reduced order models.

His research interests include the development of stable and fast numerical models to serve the long term sustainable development of river systems and achieving greater modelling accuracy using reduced order models.

About the talk:

Currently, climate scenarios indicate increased flood discharges and lower low discharge events in rivers. This is the background of the recently started national program focussing on how the geometry of the Rhine and Meuse rivers can be improved for flood conveyance, freshwater availability, water quality, inland navigation and regional economic development.

The talk focuses on the hydrodynamic and morphodynamic effects of river adaptations in the Rhine and Meuse. Natures’ numbers varying from 0.002 to 18000 will be presented.