Water Construction Day 2011

When:

13 October 2011

08:45 Hour - 17:30 Hour

Event organizer:Hydraulic engineering

Description

Building for the future

In recent years, a number of large and high-profile hydraulic engineering projects have come under construction. These include the Room for the River project, Maasvlakte 2, the beautiful tunnel through Maastricht and the North-South line. Many bottlenecks in the motorway network are now being accelerated, and the decision was recently taken to extend the A4 motorway. The first two projects mentioned are on the programme of the 2011 Water Construction Day.

Currently, however, there seems to be some reluctance to start major projects. The government is tight-lipped about budget cuts and against that background, this reluctance is understandable. As a result, the number of new plans, which could be implemented in a few years' time, seems to be shrinking.

One example is the plan to reinforce the Afsluitdijk, for which a design competition was launched. The entries were ambitious and the competition produced four beautiful and very different designs. However, these do not appear to be coming to fruition in the proposed form. At present, the Delta Commissioner's plans are not concrete enough to challenge builders. The current situation forces us to use people and resources efficiently and will also lead to innovative ways of tendering.

To make our economy flourish, executable and concrete plans are needed. At government level, a number of top sectors have been identified, with which the Netherlands can distinguish itself and which should be a booster for the Dutch economy. Under the leadership of Koos van Oord, thought has been given to the Water sector, and during the Water Construction Day he will outline his team's ideas.

In China, people are very energetically building for the future. With the Three Gorges dam completed, they are building the giant north-south link and making plans to reclaim 1,100 km2 off the Shanghai coast. Deputy minister Suo Lisheng will talk about this. On a completely different scale, Zuid-Holland is considering making canals, canals and lakes more navigable and modernised to boost the area's economic development. Under the name Aquapuncture, the plans Easter in a European project, linking a number of similar national plans.

We look forward to all the plans and the elaboration to arrive at concrete challenging projects. Good plans with high benefits are necessary if we want to build for the future. That is what the Water Construction Day 2011 is dedicated to