Deltares USA is a U.S-based, not-for-profit, applied research organization closely aligned with the Dutch national water institute, Deltares. Deltares USA and Deltares Netherlands are collectively referred to as Deltares. Deltares is committed to their mission to develop and disseminate expert knowledge, innovative methods and software to help people live safely and sustainably. Deltares develops serious games, which engage stakeholders in a fun way to increase awareness on serious issues. Deltares’ tools to support risk reduction and adaptation planning include damage modeling software, critical infrastructure vulnerability tools, and tools to assess benefits of nature-based solutions. Deltares has been assisting communities with developing customized tools, including:
- The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) requested a Flood Damage Cost Estimate Desktop Tool which was used to develop a successful FEMA BRIC application for $50M.
- Broward County, FL implemented our tool incorporating the cascading impacts of critical infrastructure damages in a comprehensive economic flood risk analysis. The failure pathways were implemented in the Criticality Tool to automatically identify whether a cascading impact occurs for a given flood map.
- The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate has engaged Deltares to develop the Community Flood Resilience Support System (CFRSS), a user-friendly tool empowering communities to evaluate adaptation options in terms of monetary risk-reduction benefits under changing conditions like sea level rise and population growth. The CFRSS computes flood hazards, damages, and risks for combinations of events, adaptation strategies, and future conditions. In addition to direct structure and content damage, the tool can assess road outages, road damages, and business interruption simulations taking on the order of 2 minutes. We were just awarded another 2 year grant for phase 2 to add more functions.
Our state-of-the art, open-source software is freely available, and Martin County will benefit from increased capacity as staff can continue to utilize tools well after the project is complete.
Throughout the world, we work on innovation to improve the sustainability and resilience of living in areas vulnerable to climate change. The expertise of Deltares covers a broad range of topics and disciplines related to water and subsurface, enabling the development of holistic approaches that contribute to our innovative and integrated solutions to complex problems. These include urban resilience, physical and ecological processes of coasts, estuaries and rivers, hydraulic structures, stormwater drainage, groundwater, hydrology, integrated water resources management, risk, governance and finance and adaptation planning.
Deltares advocates for an adaptive planning approach to water management, developing and continuously advancing the dynamic adaptive policy pathways (DAPP) approach to long-term planning under uncertainty. Such an approach acknowledges that the future is uncertain and develops sequences of actions or interventions over time that ensure community objectives are met. They were a key partner of the Dutch government in their master planning for water supply and flood risk through 2100, and have partnered with governmental organizations in New Zealand, Bangladesh, San Francisco, Miami, and Louisiana in the exploration and application of DAPP for master planning.
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