Open water science for the whole of society

Ann van Griensven, head of VUB’s Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering Department: “Hydrology is the study of mainly fresh water. Scientific insights in that field are very important for tackling major global challenges such as providing drinking water for all, and combating droughts and floods. With the chair, we want to explore the interfaces between science, policy and society. The idea behind open science is to make scientific information more widely accessible, i.e. open access, more reliable, via open data, and with the active involvement of all stakeholders, open to society.”

Within this definition, open science goes beyond science that is open to the research community and refers to a science that is open to all of society. The chair’s activities are part of the Unesco Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (UNESCO-IHP) and build on the Open Water Network, supported by the Research Foundation – Flanders, the Flemish Interuniversity Council, the Research Council of VUB and the Flanders UNESCO Trustfunds (FUST).

Ann van Griensven

Ann van Griensven is professor at the Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, associate professor of hydrology at the IHE-Delft Institute for Water Education and adjunct professor at Texas A&M. She has 25 years of research experience in water quality and hydrological modelling. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Environmental Modelling and Software and Journal of Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. She is part of the development team of the open-source Soil and Water Assessment Tool. She is the chair of the Belgian committee for UNESCO-IHP.

Contact

Ann van Griensven

[email protected]

0484 76 16 96