Wetskills-Iran 2016
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Wetskills-Iran 2016
October 14, 2016 - October 25, 2016
Tehran-Iran, Minister of Environment and Infrastructure of Kingdom of The Netherlands, Ms. Schultz van Haegen announced and awarded the winning team of Wetskills-Iran. The Wetskills jury found that returning a flamingo to Lake Urmia to raise awareness on all kinds of levels in society (from primary schools to farmers to municipalities) was the idea worth awarding. The awards were given at the trade dinner for the Dutch mission to Iran headed by Ms. Schultz van Haegen.
Following two weeks of hard work, cooperation and fun, the fice Wetskills teams presented their pitches and posters of this Wetskills Water Challenge in Iran on Sunday 24th October. The ideas pitched were vastly ranging from technical solutions to give more time in adapting lifestyle for Rafsajan pistachio farmers to integrating sensor technology to create awareness by installing a large flamingo in Lake Urmia, reacting to water level, to entice inhabitants to a race to fill up the lake. A nice new introduction of rice farming in combination with dredging was given as solution for silting up of Anzali port and peach juice production as alternative livelihoods for the Hashgerd plain included a good sense of community work and regional economy development. Missing links were noticed in society and technology for the case of clean drinking water and by closing the gaps a solution was found.
Between 15 and 25 October, the first Iranian Wetskills Challenge took place in Iran. During the event in Tehran, 25 students and young professionals from Iran and The Netherlands worked together in teams to come up with out-of-the-box concepts for actual water related cases, posed by Iranian and Dutch case owners. The event was aligned to the trade mission of Minister of Infrastructure & Environment of The Netherlands, Ms. Schultz van Haegen to Iran. The Sharif University of Technology Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran are joinly hosting the event.
[no_blockquote text=”‘Participating in a Wetskills Water Challenge was a great experience. Iran is so different than The Netherlands. I learned a lot.'” title_tag=”h5″ show_border=”no” show_quote_icon=”yes” text_color=”#ffffff” background_color=”#43dbbd” width=”95″ line_height=”40″ quote_icon_color=”#0076b2″]
Practical Information
Local Hosts: Sharif University of Technology (Tehran) & Shahid Behesti University (Tehran)
Partners: Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment, TopSector Water, Nationale Water Traineeship, Embassy of kingdom of The Netherlands in Iran, Iranian Embassy in The Netherlands, Netherlands Water Partnership, Royal Netherlands Water Association, H2Oost
Event: Official trade mission of Minister of Infrastructure and Environment of The Netherlands, Ms. Schultz van Haegen
Venue: Tehran
Locations: Tehran, Ishfaram
Facts:
Participants: 24
Cases: 5
Countries: 2 (Iran & The Netherlands)
Event Cases
Case 1: Reuse of water by UV technology
Case owner: BersonUV
Water scarcity is a major growing challenge in Iran. Though technically and economically water re-use provides excellent opportunities, the cultural and religious resistance against bringing back treated waste water in the drinking water cycle is considerable. However, there is plenty of opportunity to re-use water outside applications that directly or indirectly involve human consumption (e.g. landscaping, cooling, industrial use). How can the amount of water increased that is re-used safely and disinfected?
Case 2: Resilient water management with stakeholders in Rafsanjan
Case owner: ITC-University of Twente
Rafsanjan, the main producer of pistachio in Iran, is a sample of human settlements coping with severe water scarcity and its associated socio-economic problems. Beside the engineering solutions we need to make the socio-ecological systems more resilient in water scarce situation. The assessment of different policy options in this hazardous situation is a new challenge.
Case 3: Finding unconventional Water Sources
Case owner: Lake Urmia Restoration Programme
Lake Uremia is a lake with salt water. The shrinking of the lake results in soil challenges for the agriculture. The Wetskills Team that will work on this project might find solutions related to cloud seeding, preventing salt dispersion or changing the economic ratio and thus finding another way of life for the region.
Poster with results
Poster with results
Poster with results
Case 4: Improving the irrigation water-efficiency in Hashtgerd Plain
Case owner: Dutch Water Authorities / De Dommel
A substantial increase in the rate of industrialization, agricultural activities and urbanization in Hashtgerd Plain, results in a dramatic increase of water consumption. Consequently, appropriate water resources management is essential.
The proposed result-oriented methodology (SSBK), tries to avoid impulsive actions by identifying existing bottlenecks and postponing thinking in solutions.
Case 5: Cleaning the sediments of Anzali Port
Case owner: Van Oord
Anzali Port is located in the north of Iran at the Caspian Sea. The port is situated at the famous Anzali lagoon. Due to the sediments and tons of household, industrial and hospital waste entering the lagoon each year, the lagoon has gone from a nine-metre depth in 1975 to just one metre.
How can the sediments from the lagoon to the Anzali port be reduced in the short and long term.
Poster with results
Poster with results
Event Partners
