Delta Alliance Young Professionals Awarding ceremony at the Rio plus 20
On Thursday, 21st of June, the Awarding ceremony of the Delta Alliance Young Professionals Award took place in the UNEP pavilion at the Rio plus 20 Conference of Sustainable Development.
Joop Atsma, State Secretary of the Dutch Ministry for Infrastructure and Environment, and Tineke Huizinga (Chair of the International Governing Board of Delta Alliance and Chair of the International Jury of the Delta Alliance Young Professional Award) together handed the award to the three winning teams:
•Thriving Deltas by Richard Fisher and Ryan Whipple proposes the transformation of a location at risk in the Sacramento – San Joachim Delta in California into a pilot ground for new promising developments
•Re-generating Delta by Frederico Curiel proposes a strategy for large scale micro-algae harvesting, converting the farmland along the coastline of the Pearl River Delta into large scale open algae harvesting ponds
•Balance Island by Sander van Rooij, Emil Kuijs and Bert van Bueren aims at reducing salt intrusion and restoring natural estuarine dynamics and ecology by creating a semienclosed estuary with a series of constructed sandy islands in the South West Rhine-Meuse Delta in the Netherlands
Artist's impression of an artificial island in a river mouth to reduce salt intrusion by sea water.
During the event, the award winners personally presented their innovative solutions for the Pearl Delta (Republic of China), the Rhine-Meuse Delta (The Netherlands) and the Sacramento - San Joaquin Delta (California-USA).
The winning teams will receive financial and organizational support to further elaborate their proposal in collaboration with the Dutch Wing, together with one of the eleven international Wings of the Delta Alliance.
The 10 best solutions are described in a special booklet that can be - downloaded - from the website of Deltares.
More information
Delta Alliance – California Wing
Wim van Driel, wim.vandriel@wur.nl
Wageningen, the Netherlands
www.delta-alliance.org