Marine Geodesy Committee

Introduction

The Marine Geodesy Committee is a broadly composed body that provides direction to fundamental and strategic research in the field of marine geodesy, provides international contacts and disseminates the resulting knowledge and information.
Within geodesy, marine geodesy is characterised by the cross-border character (crossing sea/land) of reference systems and datums, the dynamic character of electromagnetic and acoustic collection systems, and the specific working environment of the applicators/users of systems and information.

Members

Toine Barten (chair) – Ministry of Defense
Thijs Ligteringen (secretaris) – Ministry of Defense
Ben Dierikx – RWS
Thaienne van Dijk – Deltares
Floor de Haan
Niels Kinneging – RWS
Hubert-Jan Lekkerkerk – NHL Stenden Hogeschool
Barend Lubbers – Ministry of Defense
Pieter Roos – University of Twente
Anton Scheele – Nederlandse Defensieacademie (NLDA)
Dick Simons – TU Delft
Cornelis Slobbe – TU Delft
Mirjam Snellen – TU Delft
Hans Visser – Fugro

Mission

Promoting consultation between parties from science, government and business in the field of geo-information and geodesy applied to the maritime environment with the aim of:

transferring knowledge between science, government and business;
advising on knowledge development and research, tailored to the anticipated needs of Dutch society for the maritime environment;
promoting strategic exploration, scenario studies and trend analyzes with regard to technical-scientific developments in this field and initiating research in this context;

this partly for the purpose of shaping the government’s geo-information policy for the maritime domain.

Tasks

The committee encourages geodetic research proposals applied to the marine environment and coordinates marine geodetic developments in the Netherlands in the areas of research, education and professional practice. The committee also advises the NCG, the sector and Dutch society on marine geodesy.
The committee identifies joint relevant topics in its field of work and discusses these topics in collaboration with the responsible organizations. The emphasis is on coordination between these organizations and on identifying relationships with other topics within and outside geodesy. Both solicited and unsolicited, the committee emphasizes the importance of the maritime domain.
The committee wants to help implement the 2025 science vision of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, which has been elaborated in the National Science Agenda, applied to the maritime domain. The importance of the maritime environment is increasing for the themes of energy, raw materials, transport, climate and safety. The committee wants to contribute to an integrated maritime information system that is connected to the country.

Possible areas of interest

The committee wants to focus on the Blue Route: water as a path to innovation and sustainable growth. The Blue Route focuses on answering and connecting all questions related to water. The committee has put the following questions on the agenda from this Blue Route:

How can we optimally use rivers, lakes, seas and oceans for energy production?
How can we contribute to the efficiency and environmental friendliness of the transport system as a whole with more efficient means of transport?
How can we protect society against flooding in a nature-friendly manner?
How do you measure and model the interaction between ice, atmosphere and ocean, so that sea level rise can be reliably predicted?
How can we manage water carefully in the future?
How can we protect and preserve the qualities of the subsurface for people and the environment, while leaving room for social developments?
How do seas and oceans function and what is their significance for the future?
How can we increase the safety of traffic and transport?
How do we bridge different scales when modeling dynamic systems, such as flows of and in liquids and gases?

Within this ambition and focus areas, the Marine Geodesy committee will develop in the areas of knowledge development, knowledge transfer, external cooperation and internal organizations as described in the NCG Policy Plan 2023-2027.