Workshops

By Martin Ziegler (UU) & Timme Donders (UU)

Scientific drilling has transformed the understanding of our planet by addressing some of the most fundamental questions about Earth’s dynamic history, processes, and structure. Understanding climate, sea-level and environmental changes, geohazards, natural resources, the structure and evolution of the Earth’s crust and the nature and extent of the deep biosphere all require having access to information recorded in subsurface layers. Two major and complementary international programs undertake drilling for the scientific community: IODP (International Ocean Discovery Program) and ICDP (International Continental Scientific Drilling Program), in oceanic and continental environments respectively. This Townhall meeting will update the research community in the Netherlands about major developments and news in both programs and it will be an opportunity to discuss future opportunities.

By Frank Wesselingh (Naturalis) and Sanneke van Asselen (Deltares en KNGMG)

The Dutch earth sciences is a strong but dispersed community, including universities, knowledge institutes, citizen scientists and industries. In times of climate change and the transition to sustainable and renewable energy, the role of earth sciences is also changing: our discipline provides solutions towards a sustainable society. However, the fragmentation of the field in the Netherlands hampers our societal role. By combining the forces of different Dutch earth sciences partners, we aim to develop a joint national online geo-platform where we share our data and knowledge and inform, and especially engage with, a wide target audience who can benefit from such a joint portal. This target audience may include (local) governments, the private sector, knowledge institutes, universities, and schools. The latter are important to educate children and students and make them familiar and enthusiastic with (the importance and prospects of) earth sciences. In the workshop, we want to explore with you (geo-related) needs and questions of a number of target audiences, and challenge you to come up with strong messages we want to convey. Together, we would like to formulate mottos and messages to ensure our national geological initiative will connect to the target audiences, thereby increasing the role of earth scientists in the Netherlands towards the sustainable society of the future.

By Ronald Pijnenburg (EPOS-eNLarge)

EPOS-eNLarge kicks off!
 
…and it wants to do so with you. Why? Because EPOS-eNLarge is designed to help you, with your research into our subsurface.

Of course, we will introduce EPOS-eNLarge, an 18 M€ project, that spans a wide range in Dutch research facilities at UU, TU Delft, TNO and KNMI (some of which most likely quite familiar to you). And we will highlight that these facilities together enable research from nano- to kilometer-scale.

But most of all, we want to hear from you. Is your research focused on a small scale (e.g. fundamental processes), or large scale (e.g. system behavior; societal effects)? And can your research at the small scale be directly used at the large scale, or vice versa? For instance, to help answer how microscale processes influence subsurface operations (e.g. geothermal, storage), or seismicity. What would you need to answer questions like these, can we help? And many of you have published data, or are planning to. But who benefits? How can you make your data easier to find, and re-use? 
 
In our kick-off we will explore such questions together and discuss our plans to help you answering these. Looking forward to seeing you there!

By Ellen Weerman (HAS) & Jakob Wallinga (RUG)

In the past decades the sandy soil areas in the Netherlands have changed dramatically. This resulted in landscapes that are vulnerable to extreme weather events. Agricultural production and water quality are deteriorating in today’s weather and even more in future climate scenarios. There are quite a few research projects working on regenerated landscapes, landscapes that will be resilient to climate change and in which negative trends biodiversity and water quality will be reversed. Most of these projects have an interdisciplinary character. In this session we want to make a first step in setting-up a climate resilient sandy soil research network by bringing these projects and expertise’s together in one session. The goal of the network will be to exchange experiences and knowledge within and between disciplines so the transition towards climate robust sandy soils will be enhanced. In the session the ongoing projects on the topic will be introduced, and we will discuss how to establish and organize the envisaged network. Participation of researchers from ongoing projects is prioritized.

By Christoph Hecker (UT)

High-temperature geothermal systems typically show surface manifestations with elevated temperatures. We demonstrate in this workshop how Thermal Remote Sensing can be used to detect these thermal surface anomalies as an early exploration tool for geothermal resources in East Africa. We will introduce what Thermal Remote Sensing is, and can be used for in different application fields of the Earth and Environmental Sciences. We then focus on the outcomes of the NWO-funded GeoHot Project where we used ECOSTRESS data from the International Space Station to detect geothermal anomalies in the Olkaria study area in Kenya. We will talk about success as well as discuss limitations that may negatively impact the results. Participants do not need to have prior remote sensing knowledge to follow the workshop. Laptops are not required, but participants receive links to additional materials at the end of the workshop.

By Riccardo Riva (TUD)

A debate on the effectiveness and credibility of activism by scientists.
Scientists are not only expected to do excellent research, they are also expected to have an impact on society. While individual scientists choose different ways to have such an impact, ranging from outreach to protest actions, within the scientific community there is no consensus on which form of engagement is the most effective nor a unique answer to the crucial question whether activism impacts the credibility of those engaging in it.
In this workshop, we will hold a debate (‘lagerhuis’-style) to collect and test arguments for and against activism by scientists in general and academics in particular.  The audience will be divided into two sets of groups, with the assignment to prepare an argument in favour or against a specific form of activism. The groups will then be given the opportunity to exchange their positions during a short debate. The goal is to sharpen the thinking within the group on when (or when not) scientists can and ought to be activistic.