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Consortium meeting: Shaping the Virtual Delta

Posted at 15/10/2024

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Shaping the Virtual Delta

On the 23rd of April, the consortium met online to update everyone on the state of Salti Solutions and to “shape the Virtual Delta”. For the latter, around fifty partners and researchers of the Salti Solutions consortium were asked for input for the development of the digital twin, serious game, and integrated assessment model, tools that are part of the Virtual Delta toolbox. A brief recap of the meeting.

Neeltje Kielen guided the online meeting as its hostess. After welcoming everyone, she handed over the virtual floor to Julie Pietrzak, who subsequently kicked off the meeting by presenting the status of the Salti Solutions program, including introducing Jip Grootveld as the new program manager as well as the new PhDs that started since the previous consortium meeting.

From there, the main topic of the meeting took centre stage: the Virtual Delta. The Virtual Delta is one of the main outputs that the Salti Solutions is working towards. It can best be described as a toolbox that contains the following complementary tools: (1) a digital twin; (2) a serious game; and (3) an integrated assessment model. These tools are the focus of project 8 and project 9, but also link to other Salti projects through the integration of knowledge. However, the integration of knowledge covers what we could call “the supply side”. To understand what (and in what way) knowledge should be integrated, it is important to also explore “the need side”: What need should these tools satisfy? Who is going to use these tools? For what purpose? The consortium meeting contributed to exploring these questions.

Jaap Kwadijk kicked of the exploration by first presenting the current views on and plans for the Virtual Delta, among others explaining that the digital twin (project 9) will focus on the short-term (operational) management of salt intrusion, while the serious game and the integrated assessment model (both project 8) will focus on the long-term (planning). Following this introduction, the group exercise kicked off, which was conducted in five groups using Mural, an online whiteboard application. Jaap Kwadijk, Maartje van Dijk, Wouter Kranenburg, Henk Dijkstra, Mark van Koningsveld each moderated one group, asking partners were asked what question they would like to be able explore for the short-term and for the long-term using the Virtual Delta toolbox. Researchers in turn were asked what knowledge they could contribute to these questions. Partners and researchers answered these questions by filling in cards in the format of “as a [persona], I would like to […], so that […].” This way, the completed cards not only provided input on the need that the Virtual Delta toolbox could fulfil, but helped understand how satisfying that need is beneficial for the different partners. An impression of the results from one break-out room is shown below.

Last modified: 26/07/2021