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Relations between Land Tenure Security, Farmland Use and Agricultural Productivity: A Spatio-Temporal Comparative Assessment of Farmland Tenure Arrangements and Agriculture Strategizing in Rwanda (2006-2017)

Singirankabo, U.A. (author)

This PhD study aims to assess the relations between land tenure security, farmland use and agricultural productivity. Using a locally-defined research approach, the study explores those relations from a review of the literature to a case study in Rwanda. Therefore, the case study includes four research sites: Gatwe, Nyabubare, Rusebeya and...

doctoral thesis 2022

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Use of confidence curves to represent uncertainty in hydro-meteorological time series analysis

Zhou, C. (author)

Climate change is incompatible with the assumption of stationarity. This has lead to a sharp increase in the detection and study of nonstationarity in hydro-meteorological processes. Most hydro-meteorological processes are still analyzed by studying time series of observations. From the perspective of statistical characteristics, a stationary...

doctoral thesis 2022

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Real-time operation of a multi-reservoir system

Lin, N.M. (author)

Reservoirs have a significant role to manage fresh water resources for irrigation, hydropower generation, domestic and industrial use, flood and drought control and navigation. To date, more than 50,000 large dams have been constructed in the world for providing water-related services to our society that support socioeconomic development of many...

doctoral thesis 2022

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Understanding radar backscatter sensitivity to vegetation water dynamics: Sub-daily variations in ground-based experiments

Vermunt, P.C. (author)

Observing vegetation water dynamics from space offers insights into plant-water relations and water and carbon fluxes across ecosystems at local to global scales. A promising technique to observe water in the vegetation layer is radar, an active form of microwave remote sensing. Interactions between microwaves and vegetation material depend on...

doctoral thesis 2022

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Data Assimilation in High Dimensional Systems Using Local Particle Filters: Overcoming the curse of dimensionality in hydrology

Wang, Z. (author)

This dissertation's ultimate goal is to provide solutions to two problems that the promising data assimilation method, called the Particle Filter, has when applied to high dimensional non-linear models, such as those often used in hydrological research and forecasting. Two local particle filters have been proposed to overcome three major issues....

doctoral thesis 2021

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Setting Africa’s rainfall straight: A warping approach to position and timing errors in rainfall estimates

le Coz, C.M.L. (author)

There is an increasing number of rainfall products available over Africa and globally. Rainfall has considerable socio-economic impacts in sub-Saharan Africa, and the sparse gauge and radar networks make such estimates particularly valuable. They are used in many important applications such as drought/flood forecasting, water management or...

doctoral thesis 2021

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Perspectives of Cost-Efficient GNSS Equipment for Wide-Spread and High-Quality Meteorological and Positioning Applications

Krietemeyer, A. (author)

Whether in cars, smartphones, watches or fitness-trackers - the use of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) has become a part of our daily life. Currently there are more than 100 GNSS satellites in orbit. They are routinely utilized for positioning and timing purposes, but their signals can also be used to monitor our environment. The...

doctoral thesis 2021

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Model Predictive Control of Water Level and Salinity in Coastal Areas

Aydin, B.E. (author)

POLDERS are low-lying and artificially drained areas surrounded bywater storage canals. In low-lying delta areas such as theMississippi delta in Louisiana (USA), the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta (Bangladesh), or the Rhine-Meuse delta (The Netherlands), polders experience surface water salinization problem due to saline groundwater exfiltration,...

doctoral thesis 2020

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Determining Mexican climate-adaptive environmental flows reference values for people and nature: A hydrology-based approach for preventive environmental water allocation

Salinas Rodriquez, Sergio (author)

Environmental flows (e-flows) science has significantly advanced in the last decades. In Mexico, a standard for e-flow assessments was recently published as a regulatory instrument to support water planning and management. However, the appropriateness of the technical procedure in a climate change context has not been investigated. Do the e...

doctoral thesis 2019

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Mobilizing Young Researchers, Citizen Scientists, and Mobile Technology to Close Water Data Gaps: Methods Development and Initial Results in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Davids, J.C. (author)

Data gaps as educational opportunities - mobilizing young researchers, citizen scientists, and mobile technology in data and resource scarce areas. This dissertation chronicles these themes through the lessons learned along the fledgling journey of SmartPhones4Water (S4W) and S4W-Nepal, from inception through the first few years of...

doctoral thesis 2019

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Effects of rainfall and catchment scales on hydrological response sensitivity in urban areas

Cristiano, E. (author)

Spatial and temporal rainfall variability play an important role in generation of pluvial flooding. In urban areas, this phenomenon has increased in the last decades, due in particular to an intensification of urbanization and imperviousness degree. In fact, population is growing and moving from rural areas to cities, which are becoming more and...

doctoral thesis 2019

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Estimating Surface Heat Fluxes Using Temperature and Wetness Information: A Particle Data Assimilation Framework

Lu, Y. (author)

Surface heat fluxes (latent and sensible heat over the land surface) play a key role in the land-atmosphere interaction, and their spatial pattern as well as temporal evolution are vital to the terrestrial water cycle and surface energy balance. Ideally, we want to have accurate estimates of spatially distributed and temporally continuous fluxes...

doctoral thesis 2019

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The Effectiveness of Risk Communication to Raise Awareness of Natural Hazards

Charriere, M.K.M. (author)

This doctoral thesis studies the effectiveness of real-life risk communication efforts that include visuals and aim to increase the awareness of populations at risk of natural hazards. Several methods are used. To obtain a picture of the current state of research and practice, a qualitative approach is followed, including a literature review of...

doctoral thesis 2018

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Water as a coolant of cities

Solcerova, A. (author)

Since more than half of the world population already lives in cities, it is important to understand the urban climate and its particularities. One of the typical aspects of urban areas is that cities are generally warmer than their rural surrounding. This phenomenon was first time described 200 years ago in the case of London and is commonly...

doctoral thesis 2018

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Planetary-scale surface water detection from space

Donchyts, G. (author)

This thesis studies automated methods of surface water detection from satellite imagery. Multiple existing methods are explored, discussed, and some new algorithms are introduced to allowvery accurate detection of surface water and surfacewater changes. Themethods range in applicability from the local level to global, and from detecting high...

doctoral thesis 2018

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Exploring urban flooding incidence through spatial information: A complementary view to support climate adaptation of lowland cities

Gaitan Sabogal, S. (author)

Cities are vulnerable to local floods due to heavy rainfall. Urban flooding causes damage to buildings and contents, and also disturbs daily city activities as it entails drainage, transportation, and electricity interruptions. Urban flooding is expected to increase as climate change drives heavier rainfall events. Population and assets...

doctoral thesis 2017

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Anthropogenic impacts on global organic river pollution

Wen, Y. (author)

Organic pollution of rivers by wastewater discharge from human activities negatively impacts people and ecosystems. Without treatment, pollution control relies on a combination of natural degradation and dilution by natural runoff to reduce downstream effects. To implement integrated water management for organic river quality at global scale, a...

doctoral thesis 2017

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Water stress detection using radar

van Emmerik, T.H.M. (author)

Vegetation is a crucial part of the water and carbon cycle. Through photosynthesis carbon is assimilated for biomass production, and oxygen is released into the atmosphere. During this process, water is transpired through the stomata, and is redistributed in the plant. Transpired water is refilled by uptake of water from the root zone in the...

doctoral thesis 2017

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Modelling expertise: Experts and expertise in the implementation of the Water Framework Directive in the Netherlands

Junier, S.J. (author)

The thesis deals with the use of computer software to inform policy planners in the context of debates about evidence based policy making and the role of experts and expertise in policy planning. Specifically it analyses the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) in the Netherlands and the development of a decision...

doctoral thesis 2017

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Measuring and modelling salt and heat transport in low-land drainage canals: Flow and stratification effects of saline seepage

Hilgersom, K.P. (author)

This thesis explores a new measuring approach to quantify the seepage flux from boils. Boils are preferential groundwater seeps and are a consequence of the groundwater flow that works its way through the soil matrix by creating vents of higher conductive material. In the Netherlands, boils often occur in deep polders (reclaimed lakes situated 4...

doctoral thesis 2017