Merry Christmas from FRM

T'was a week before Christmas, when all through FRM

Not a student was stirring, not even the Bangladesh men.

Our thesis topics had been sent to little Delft with care,

In hopes that our very own Biswa would allocate them there.

The students were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of published theses in peer-reviewed journals danced in their heads.

In cold Ljubljana, in more layers than Shristi were we wrapped,

We settled down for our evening siesta - or 'night-time nap'.

With a sense that, across Europe, academic keyboards had begun to clatter,

We sprang to our non-UNESCO laptops to see what was the matter.

Away to our IHE emails we went with only mild fears of horror.

Before closing our decent browser and opening Internet Explorer.

(Why, oh why does UNESCO email require the most outdated of browsers?

As comfortable to use as the Barca metro, in summer, in trousers).

And in my inbox, to my wonder, what should appear,

But a festive email from our Biswa, from whom we love to hear.

In the following email seconds later, this time remembering the attachment (!),

We nervously anticipated the thesis news we presume had been sent. 

With CC's flying before our eyes,

Biswa called the faithful lectures, who on our theses will advise.

"Now, Katya! Now, Bernhofer! Now, Leo and Dimitri!

On, Schalk! On, Allen! On, Vicente and Brilly!

We must inform our chosen thesis students - send out your call!
Now mail away, mail away, mail away all!"

With Biswa's rousing speech, we heard staff keyboards tinkle

"Oh, I hope for an Uncertainty-heavy topic" dreamt Nilay " - more than a sprinkle!"

But little could our dreaming minds truly know,

Which topic would, to our inboxes, flow!

We woke to the sound Patricia always hears and always likes:

Fiesta? Siesta? No, of course it was Skype.

"Hello student, your pal Biswa here:
The thesis! It's sorted! See you in the New Year!"

We spoke not a word, as we were over the moon.

The perfect thesis awarded - oh, February 10th, please come soon!

It may have felt a long, arduous and tricky road,

But Biswa had delivered, despite the vast workload.

And as we next lay our heads to enter for-once worry-free slumber,

I swear I heard Biswa, his words I could name to a number:

"Merry Thesis to all, I look forward to the wonders that you write.
And:

 Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night"

Photograph from Shristi

Poem by Clement Clark Moore/Richard Vause

Working in the Pressure Cooker in Rotterdam

By title, we are a group of Flood Risk Managers. Accordingly, when the news of an event organised as part of the Rotterdam Flood Risk conference for students interested in Flood Risk and related subjects was brought to our attention, there was significant interest from the members of our course. The student event in question was the ‘24hour Pressure Cooker’, in which 20 students were split into groups, locked in a room for 24 hours and left to work on a flood-related serious game. This may not sound entirely desirable, but it was actually an event that many of the course were interested in attending, especially since we were given a free week in our Barcelona class schedule to encourage our attendance.

After a thorough application process, six members of the course were selected to attend the event, which also gave us an excuse to return to our previously beloved Delft. After a day of acclimatising to the much colder, wetter Dutch weather (Barcelona was still experiencing gorgeous weather!) and catching up with friends and staff at UNESCO-IHE, we were off to Rotterdam for the Pressure Cooker. Meeting at a ferry port, we were transported to an industrial island in the harbours of Rotterdam – there was literally no escape from this event for the next 24 hours.

Upon our arrival, we six students from the Flood Risk Management (2011-13) batch were extremely pleased to meet another selected student from the Flood Risk Management (2012-14) batch! Daria, a Russian student that we can only assume is a direct equivalent of our own Maria, confirmed that the future of the FRM course is in capable hands. The six seven of us were then split into six groups to focus on one of three topics: Stakeholder participation in Bangkok, Innovative use of Dike-breach data and Dike reinforcement using vegetation. Our challenge was then to create the concept of a serious game (defined as a virtual or physical game designed to educate those who play) on the above topics over a sleepless night. 24 hours of work culminated in a pitch (performed still with no sleep) in front of leading industry officials from a number of European consultancies.

The room in which we worked in overnight as
part of the 24 hour pressure cooker.

It was a rewarding experience in which I am sure all of us learnt a lot about how we work in a team and under pressure. And on limited sleep. And on a diet formed mostly of bread-based food. After tough assessment of our pitches and concepts, the judges selected the serious game that they felt had the greatest potential. After much tension building on the final stage, a team containing two of our very own FRM students (Lydia and Shristi) were selected, being awarded their prize of shiny iPads. All participants of the event and the professionals involved in judging were quick to congratulate on the manner and magnitude of the groups success. And it was a brilliant moment to see FRM represented - especially since the final pitch upon which the games were assessed was given fantastically by our Shristi.

The pressure cooker also provided us with free entry to the Flood Risk 2012 conference in Rotterdam, providing us with the opportunity to hear the cutting-edge research from the field of flood risk. Also, it gave many of us an opportunity to try and chase up a thesis topic, with mixed success. The conference and it's participants proved a pleasant ending to an intense 48 hours, with our efforts rewarded with much respect given by the professionals that we met. Hopefully our future lives in Flood Risk Management will prove to be less intense than the Pressure Cooker event and our trip to Holland, but hopefully it may also prove to be as rewarding and beneficial.

By

Richard Vause

The final push in Delft

Post-Florida and pre-holidays, our time in Delft flew and, before we knew it, we were saying goodbye to Delft. The two months in June and July saw us follow two courses at UNESCO-IHE – Flood Risk Management and Hydroinformatics for Decision Support Systems. These two months also saw us experience some good Dutch weather (and, admittedly  also some terrible Dutch weather), which we lapped-up willingly, so please refer to the following post that it wasn't all work and no play!

As the namesake of our entire masters, the Flood Risk Management course was one that had always held special resonance in the schedule. Having also undertaken a course of the same name in Dresden, it was of interest to see the difference in approaches from the two institutes. The course in Dresden took a very holistic approach, covering a wide-base of the entire Flood Risk Management spectrum – from insurance and legal frameworks to spatial planning and social vulnerability studies, the Dresden course was deemed to be the pinnacle of our studies in Germany, providing a fantastic insight into the field. All thanks must go to Dr Katya Siemens, Dr Jochen Schanze and the numerous guest-speakers. At UNESCO-IHE, the FRM module took an approach much more focussed on the modelling and data-manipulation used in flood risk management. With consideration of Early Warning Systems, and the creation of models to produce such warnings, spatial depth-damage curves and more, the course took a more specialised approach to flood risk management. Which was good if you liked computer and models.

The Decision Support Systems module provided a first experience of a new field for the class: using computer programs and set methodologies to help make better and more informed decisions. Having already gained experience in the principles behind such concepts as Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) and Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA), it was of interest to see how computer programs could be used to formalise these procedures and facilitate more effective decision making. In addition to some very complicated website design/programming, excel macro-writing and, essentially, economics it was time to say goodbye to our academic life in Delft. It had been a hard ride, not a single member of the course was under delusions otherwise, but a ride in which a lot had been learnt.

The entire Delft group: Academic staff, Hydroinformatics students,
FRM students at the organised leaving party

To read about the social-side of our times in Holland, please check out the following post.

by Richard Vause