Delta Life 8

10 BY CAROLA DE VREE IMAGE PETER DE KROM T he Chief Engineer-Director of the Major Projects and Maintenance Department of Rijkswaterstaat, Jean Luc Beguin, comes from Belgium. From the city of Liège in the French-speaking part of the country, Wallonia, where he studied civil engineering. It was romance that brought him to the Netherlands. 'There's nothing going on there, said my family. Now they are impressed by water management in the Netherlands. This delta and what we know about it are very special. We sometimes forget that ourselves in the Netherlands'. It also involves challenges for roads, waterways and water management. Most roads, bridges, locks and dams are fifty years old or older and they need to be replaced or renovated. Howmuch infrastructure needs to be renovated or replaced in the Netherlands? And why is that? 'A lot of infrastructure is outdated. That's nothing special: we saw it coming. But the way roads and waterways are used now has been completely transformed in the past fifty years. Things have developed incredibly quickly. Take trucks, for example: they sometimes have six axles these days and so their load capacity has increased beyond imagination. This kind of technology didn't exist when many bridges and other structures were being built and it demands much more from the infrastructure than was foreseen at the time. Traffic intensities have increased everywhere (particularly in towns) and ships aren't prepared to wait for an afternoon to go through a lock. And when you put the new climate scenarios, the consequences of smart mobility and demands in the area of safety and sustainability into the mix, it's clear that investment is needed. Almost five billion euros has been earmarked between now and 2030 for the replacement and renovation of the principal roads, waterways and water systems in the country. And we are actually looking further ahead, taking scenarios for the next fifty years into account. In the meantime, we are continuing to monitor and test, and to alter our plans where necessary. An adaptive approach is appropriate for the rapid changes that are upon us'. If you are going to replace infrastructure, it obviously makes sense to adopt a smart approach. What is Rijkswaterstaat doing differently these days? 'We used to look at the challenge of replacement too much in isolation. Too much from the perspective of technology alone. ‘NOBODY CAN SOLVE THIS ON THEIR OWN’ In order to keep the delta of the Netherlands 'operational' in the future, large-scale infrastructure replacement and renovation will be needed. That is the view of Jean Luc Beguin of Rijkswaterstaat.