Water Resources Management
The Water Resources Management group is engaged in interdisciplinary research and education at the intersection of water, technology and society. Under the lead of Petra Hellegers, we study integrated water resources management and governance questions around the world, focusing on how technological choices, socio-ecological dynamics and cultural-political processes produce specific patterns of water use and allocation.
Research themes
Agricultural water management
Agricultural Water Management encompasses the research field of water resources use efficiency and productivity of agricultural systems from plot, scheme, system to landscape level.
Water governance
We study how different societies organise the extraction, provision, financing, use and disposal of water for different uses and users, as well as the protection of water sources.
Contested knowledges
Contested Knowledges focuses on how knowledge interrelates with power and politics to shape water governance, control and use.
Education
Education by Water Resources Management
In our teaching, students gain knowledge on the interlinkages between water, society and technology. The majority of the courses offered by WRM Group focus directly on the design and performance of irrigated agriculture at field, scheme and catchment level, from both technical and social (governance) perspectives. Moreover, an increasing number of WRM courses looks at rural-urban water linkages, world food trade, water justice and water allocation for other water uses such as hydropower and mining in a cross-disciplinary manner.
Publications & Projects
Our overall mission is to improve water and food securities, by paying particular attention to water-based forms of social vulnerability. We ask questions about how technologies, policies and realities about water are constructed and contested, we embed our research in collaborative networks of multiple water actors at different scales, and actively link our research to capacity building and policy initiatives to generate societal impact.
Highlighted projects
- Restoring marine natures in Southeast Asia and beyond: Geopolitics meets the politics of care
- Applications of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Agricultural Water Management to Derive Change at Scale
- Water Use and Drought Ecohydrological Responses of Agricultural and Nature Ecosystems in the Netherlands (WUNDER project): socio-economic aspects and climate adaptation in the water and agricultural systems
Highlighted publications
Chair Holder
Petra Hellegers is professor and chair of the Water Resources Management group. She has extensive experience in the economic analysis of water (allocation) issues and in studying the role of economic instruments in irrigation water management, nationally and internationally (among others in Egypt, India, Morocco, Mozambique, Ukraine and Yemen).
prof.dr.ir. PJGJ (Petra) Hellegers
Chair Holder
People of the Chair Group
Meet the people of Water Resources Management
