What the Netherlands exports is confidence

A look back at Hydraulic Engineering Day 2026: hydraulic engineering around the world

Over seven hundred professionals, students and other stakeholders from the hydraulic engineering sector travelled to Utrecht on 29 October for Hydraulic Engineering Day. For many of them, it was their first time attending the event. The day is an initiative of Rijkswaterstaat, KIVI and the Association of Hydraulic Engineers. The theme: Hydraulic Engineering Worldwide.The question of the day: how does the Netherlands maintain its international standing now that knowledge and expertise are rapidly increasing worldwide? The answer lay not only in technology.

Three hours of discussion, not a word about the tunnel
The most impressive project by Martijn Smitt, executive director at Ballast Nedam, did not begin with a tender, but with a single phone call. A Korean contractor asked him to come over. A day later, he was on a plane, heading for a submerged tunnel in the open sea between Busan and the island of Geoje: according to Smitt, one of the largest infrastructure projects in Korean history.

The first meeting lasted three hours. It wasn’t about the tunnel. “We talked about our countries, our families, our children, and what we find important in life.” That night, in his hotel, Smitt sketched out a solution for positioning the tunnel segments on the seabed with an accuracy of two centimetres: a system using hydraulic legs, inspired by Star Wars. This enabled the final tunnel section to be positioned with an accuracy of 20 millimetres during the final installation phase. The tunnel opened on the scheduled date in 2010.

“Many people think that we, as Dutch engineers, export technology,” says Smitt. “But what we export is confidence: the confidence that complex challenges can be solved.” His warning: “The biggest mistake a Dutch company can make is to be arrogant and think that we are here to provide the solution.”

In Iraq, where Ballast Nedam built a submerged tunnel south of Basra, the flow calculation model for the original design was off by a factor of two. A Korean engineer suggested positioning a tunnel segment halfway across the river and simply measuring the flow velocity and the forces in the winches to calibrate the model. “In Europe, we’d created a new model. There’s nothing wrong with creating a new model, but sometimes a practical measurement gets you further, faster.”

His advice to young engineers: “If you get the chance to step outside your comfort zone and get involved in a project like this, go for it. Once you’ve tasted that passion, you’ll never want anything else.”

But international success requires more than technical daring and cultural adaptability. Funding, local market knowledge and a willingness to take risks also determine whether an opportunity actually becomes a project.

Demand is growing, butfunding isn’t always keeping pace
That confidence is important, butit doesn’t automatically give Dutch companies a head start. Water Envoy Meike van Ginneken outlined the market. Due to climate change, global demand for dykes, coastal protection and ports is growing. More than half of the turnover from Dutch delta technology is already generated abroad. But not every enquiry turns into a contract: many governments can barely borrow any more, and interest rates have risen. Five years ago, nature-based solutions were still a Dutch speciality. Other countries now also possess this expertise. According to Meike van Ginneken, opportunities for Dutch companies lie in complex projects where quality is the deciding factor. This requires collaboration with local partners, a broad perspective on Europe as a home market and, where appropriate, a greater willingness to take risks.

A dyke also means freedom
The importance of hydraulic engineering is not only apparent during disasters or floods. Mathijs van Ledden, who works as a consultant for the World Bank, linked his experiences in Bangladesh to a personal story from the Netherlands. In Bangladesh, 400 kilometres of dykes have been upgraded. These protect 700,000 people from cyclones and the tides. Van Ledden’s lesson began close to home. A ninety-year-old woman told him that in 1965 she was able to go out for dinner on a Saturday evening in Zierikzee for the first time, thanks to the new Grevelingen Dam. “Hydraulic engineering is not just about protection against high water. It is about connection, about freedom, about new opportunities.”

More students, new solutions
There was good news regarding talent. The number of first-year civil engineering students at Delft University of Technology and the University of Twente has risen by 50 per cent over the past three years, said chairperson Bas Borsje (University of Twente). However, this growth has yet to materialise at senior secondary vocational (MBO) and higher professional education (HBO) levels. The Hydraulic Engineering Prize for university students went to Wouter Waasdorp (Delft University of Technology, in collaboration with TNO and Rijkswaterstaat), for a method to identify and quantify unidentified risks associated with the Maeslant Barrier. In the higher vocational education category, the prize was won by Erik ter Maten and Robin Jager (Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, in collaboration with Boskalis), for their research into the monitoring of historic quay walls in Amsterdam.

Connecting dreams
The future of Dutch hydraulic engineering lies not in maintaining a lead, but in connecting knowledge, cultures and societal challenges. Chair of the day Stefan Aarninkhof, Dean of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Delft University of Technology, summed up the day with the words Smitt once spoke in Korea: “We are taking on the challenge of connecting our dreams.”