Author: afvanloon

The 2022 drought in the Netherlands - is it over yet? The meteorological drought in the Netherlands was within the 5% most extreme years (based on precipitation minus potential evaporation). But there were strong regional differences with most severe dry conditions in the east and some locations in the southwest and northwest.  Rainfall deficit during … Continue reading Dutch Drought 2022 – A perspective by the IVM drought risk research group

At IVM - VU Amsterdam gender diversity is high on the agenda. We currently have no female professors and no female staff members with children. Over the past years five female tenure-track staff members have left, which is why our percentage of female staff has decreased. These are very worrying numbers and to find solutions … Continue reading Gender diversity in academia – sharing slides for management

Anne Van Loon has received a positive decision on her ERC Starting Grant proposal. The PerfectSTORM (‘STOrylines of futuRe extreMes’) project will provide five years of funding for research on droughts and floods. Future climate projections show a strengthening of the hydrological cycle with more droughts and floods expected. This means a higher likelihood of … Continue reading ERC Starting Grant for Anne Van Loon

- By Anne Van Loon, Marthe Wens, Raed Hamed Like many others around the world, we have been forced to move our teaching completely online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the challenges, this has also been an opportunity for us to develop new teaching methods, try flipping the classroom, and explore the use of … Continue reading Online teaching in courses related to climate risk, drought, water resources and sustainability

Last week we had several discussions within our research group in Amsterdam about #BlackLivesMatter, #ShutDownSTEM & racism in academia. I'm really grateful for the open exchange we had about this sensitive subject, which I think is very important. We feel we should share the outcomes of these discussions, so that others might be inspired to … Continue reading Racism in academia

We are happy to announce that at IVM – VU Amsterdam we have 2 PhD vacancies related to the new EU-funded DOWN2EARTH project. DOWN2EARTH project will assess critical research gaps within the dryland regions of the Horn of Africa (HAD), including i) how climate change affects the characteristics of rainfall and groundwater storage, ii) how … Continue reading 2 PHD VACANCIES DROUGHT RISK IN EAST AFRICA

In Feb 2020 I have moved from my old home at the University of Birmingham (UK) to an exiting new opportunity at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands). I have slightly updated my profile here and also have an (empty) VU page here. At VU I will work as Associate Professor in Drought Risk at … Continue reading Transfer to VU Amsterdam

Our writing retreat in the Peak District took place from 4 to 9 August and had 12 participants from Physical and Human Geography and Environmental Science (University of Birmingham, Bristol, Loughborough, Bologna, China). The week was again very productive and collaborative. This time we trialled structured writing in the morning (Pomodoro-style writing blocks of 40 … Continue reading 2019 writing retreat

Stijn Beernink (KWR Water) presented our research on how to include hydrology in mangrove restoration at the MMM5 conference in Singapore last week. Have a look at the poster here: poster_MMM5_2019_mangrove restoration_portrait. TAKE HOME MESSAGES: 1) failure of mangrove planting can be prevented by considering hydrological conditions 2) hydrological classification can guide making suitable hydrological conditions … Continue reading The hydrology of mangrove restoration

--- by Anne Van Loon --- Sir James Bevan, the Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, in a speech at the Waterwise Conference on 19 March 2019, warned that water demand could surpass water availability in England in 20-25 years (see BBC summary & full speech). In it he warned for complacency and argued for … Continue reading “Jaws of death” or sustainable solutions? About water shortage in England