C O N T E N T S - Physical Land Resources - Vrije Universiteit Brussel

ARNAUTU Calin IoanIntegration of Research and Technological Developments into EU Water PolicyDevelopment, Implementation and ReviewPromotor: P. QuevauvillerScience-policy integration is one of such complex challenges currently encounteringscientific and policy-making communities. It involves data sharing and knowledgeexchange among a lot of players and disciplines. More often than not, the poorcommunication and inefficient coordination mechanism result in research outputs thateither get ignored or hardly realized by policy-makers, and in policy research needspoorly communicated in a timely fashion to the scientific communities. This thesisdiscusses the integration of scientific and technological output into the policy-makingand WFD implementation process, with emphasis on water policies (WFD). It highlightsthe necessity and complexity of developing a knowledge-based approach, which wouldeventuate in an operational science-policy interface linked to WISE (Water InformationSystem for Europe), including the newly developed WISE-RTD web-portal.KANDORI CasperImpact of the Two-Directional Interaction of Sewer and River Systems on theFlood RiskPromotor: P. WillemsSewer networks and river systems are most often studied in a separate way. The mainreason is that different authorities are responsible for the water management of bothsystems. Sewer and river systems may, however, interact in two directions. The firstdirection is straight forward; sewer effluences and overflows have an impact on thereceiving river. In mathematical modeling applications, this influence can be describedin receiving rivers by using the output of the sewer as input for the river model. In theopposite direction, during storm conditions, the high river water level in the river mayavoid water to be discharged into the river. This will cause an increase in the flood riskof the sewer system. This influence was studied for Molenbeek River and Erpe-MereMunicipality combined sewer system in Belgium. Firstly, composite and short durationstorms simulations were performed using physically based hydrodynamic SOBEK modelfrom Delft Hydraulics, Netherlands. The simulation results of SOBEK were used to- 14 -