Posted in February 2020
Participation in the “Docinade” in Costa Rica
During the “Docinade” in San Carlos, Costa Rica, PhD students from all over Central America presented their work and obtained feed-back from experts in their field. The PhD students were mainly experienced professionals working in various themes. Water was part of the “Natural Resources theme” and topics like Arsenic removal with egg shells and banana peels in Nicaragua, and water quality monitoring in rivers in Guatemala and Costa Rica were presented.
I was asked to open the conference with a key note speech on drinking water supply in the Netherlands and the challenges we have and how we can translate them to Central America. Of particular interest for them was the collaboration we have between universities, knowledge institutes, water companies,water boards, and consultant firms in order to enhance innovation and application.
Various institutes and universities in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Colombia expressed their interest to further collaborate with the Netherlands.
Participants in Docinade
On mission to El Salvador
During my first weeks in Costa Rica I was immediately requested by IHE Delft to be part of a mission to El Salvador. The capital of San Salvador is at the moment suffering from quality problems in the drinking water. These are probably the result of algae growth due to low flows in the river, high temperatures and occasionally nutrients used in upstream agriculture. More then one million inhabitants are dependent on the water supply from the river and the dry season will only end in the month of May. Therefore, together, with ANDA, the national water company, and several ministries in El Salvador we, IHE Delft and TU Delft, will searching for short term and long term solutions for a more sustainable water supply in San Salvador.
On the Photographs, you can see the algae in the river and the problems that are present to remove them by filtration.
View of river with algae
Filters trying to remove algae
Hello world!
Welcome to my weblog. Here I will share some highlights during my sabbatical leave in Costa Rica
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