NEWS

HKV wins WACA call for innovation

Wednesday November 18th 2020 HKV and IHE Delft won the WACA call for innovation. The innovation WAC-App (see video below) was awarded with the first price of $30,000,-. The call for innovation was organized by the West Africa Coastal Areas Management Program (WACA-program). The interactive WAC-app allows policymakers, technical specialists and other stakeholders to analyze, optimize and communicate coastal intervention and their long-term morphological consequences.

The Challenge
22 innovations participated in the innovation competition of the Worldbank’s WACA-program. After several preliminary rounds the following five finalists were selected:

  • Trans-Sand: a transnational by-passing scheme funded by a public- private dredging fund
  • Wac-App: explore impacts of coastal interventions
  • Besand: the blue energy sand-bypass system
  • Coastalprotect Africa: multi-purpose technology for an integrated solution to coastal erosion and sediment management for west africa
  • Sa-Pod: systems approach for port development

After the thrilling final HKV and IHE Delft were pronounced as winners of the WACA-challenge. The jury especially appreciated the versatility and scalability of WAC-App.The top three is complemented by Egis together with Deltares and a consortium led by Witteveen and Bos. We would like to congratulate them with this achievement.

We also congratulate our team of HKV and IHE: Fredrik Huthoff, Dano Roelvink (IHE Delft), Ali Dastgheib (IHE Delft), Vincent Vuik and Roy Daggenvoorde.

For more info about the WACA-challenge please visit: https://www.wacaprogram.org/innovation

WAC-App
Our innovation WAC-App is an open-access, easy-to-use, interactive online application that gives insight into the effects of coastal interventions. It combines the predictions of the new coastline evolution model ShorelineS with the computational and data options of Google Earth Engine. WAC-App allows for easy impact assessments of coastal measures and supports decision making at different spatial and temporal scales. WAC-App allows users to get more insight in long-term coastal development and thereby facilitates communication between decision makers, technical experts and other stakeholders.

A more elaborated impression of WAC-App is available here: https://youtu.be/_MQFXlcu8Jw. This is the video made for the first round of the WACA-Challenge.

WACA
The Worldbank’s WACA-program is founded by countries along the West African coast. The following seven countries participate in the WACA-Program: Mauritania, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria. The program supports countries’ effort to improve the management of their shared coastal resources and reduce the natural and man-made risks affecting coastal communities. WACA boosts the transfer of knowledge, foster political dialogue among countries, and mobilize public and private finance to tackle coastal erosion, flooding, pollution and climate change adaptation. The WACA Program consists of country projects, regional integration and support activities, and a WACA Platform as mechanism to scale-up knowledge, dialogue and finance.

More about the WACA-program is available on: https://www.wacaprogram.org/.

dr. F. Huthoff Senior Consultant Rivers, Coasts and Deltas f.huthoff@hkv.nl