Tailor-made course Groundwater Problems

Background

The Water, Vallei, and Eem platform consists of the Vallei and Veluwe Water Board and 16 municipalities in the Gelderse Vallei and Eempolder regions.

Policy advisors and managers from the water board and the various municipalities encounter similar challenges related to groundwater issues.

Wateropleidingen has been asked to create a tailored course that links the theory of groundwater problems to the specific issues faced by the platform’s members.

Programme

After thorough preliminary research with the platform, Wateropleidingen developed the three-day customized course “Groundwater Problems.” This course is based on the “Groundwater Problems in Urban Areas” course but has been expanded to include the following topics:

• the Azure model;
• how to utilize data;
• how to conduct proper groundwater research (in collaboration with Rioned);
• differences between the municipalities within the platform;
• contribution of practical cases from the participants.
• During the lessons, participants applied the theory to their own management areas, making the material immediately relevant to them.

In addition to the instructors provided by Wateropleidingen, various topics were also presented by participants of the course, as they were experts in those areas. The instructors then supplemented these presentations with theory and their own experiences, while encouraging participants to share their own insights. This created a dynamic mix in which the participants played a major role.

Result

The combination of theory and applying it to their own management areas during the lessons allowed participants to immediately implement the lessons learned in their daily work.

The participants did not always know each other before the course. However, during the course, connections were established, making it easier for them to reach out to one another with work-related questions. Since many of the challenges faced by the participants were similar, they can continue learning from each other even after the course.

Due to the success of the first session, we immediately planned and delivered a second session.