PROJECT

Delft-FEWS and RTC-Tools training program for Romanian water professionals

As part of the European Blue Deal initiative, HKV collaborated with knowledge institute Deltares to conduct a nine-part training program for Romanian water professionals, focusing on the software of Delft-FEWS (Forecasting and Early Warning System) and RTC-Tools (Real Time Control). The training started with an overview of how Delft-FEWS can support water managers and reservoir operators in their daily work and showed the software’s applications within waterboards of the Netherlands. Subsequent sessions provided hands-on experience, including importing hydrologically relevant data such as discharges, water levels, and precipitation radar data, as well as extracting their statistics. Participants also explored XML configurations, enabling them to tailor Delft-FEWS to their specific requirements.

The program progressed to cover the optimization capabilities of RTC-Tools, where attendees engaged in case studies to optimize multiple Romanian reservoirs, taking into account each reservoir’s characteristics and priorities. The experts experienced a shift from their original rule-based operation scheme to a mathematically optimized approach. This allows participants to maximize and different goals, such as optimizing reservoir management for energy, flood safety, agriculture, or any other goal.

The training concluded with discussions on future implementation strategies, addressing the technical and organizational challenges of establishing a full operating Delft-FEWS system in Romania. This initiative has sparked the interest among Romanian experts in Delft-FEWS and RTC-Tools, laying a solid foundation for the next training session scheduled for late 2025.