Olav van Duin

Background

About Olav van Duin

Dr Olav van Duin is an experienced developer of and researcher for forecasting and decision support systems in operational water management. In the Operational Water Management department of Deltares he has worked on various Delft-FEWS systems that include various seamlessly integrated models. This include third-party rainfall-to-runoff models (e.g. HBV), in-house developed hydrodynamic and hydraulic models (e.g. SOBEK 2/3) and optimization models (e.g. RTC-Tools 1.4/2). He has applied these models in various studies, for example to analyse the difference between differently calibrated rainfall-to-runoff models over longer periods of time to assess which is most suitable for operational forecasting. His work also included the configuration of RTC-Tools optimization models (e.g. optimization of polders – flood management versus energy use for pumping), and some coding in the software itself. During his work he strives to automate as much as possible, so he has extensive experience in setting up and using Python scripts for data management and analysis, model validation, and generation of Delft-FEWS configurations. Before working at Deltares, Olav did PhD research in river dune morpohology, combining empirical and literature research, as well as numerical modelling. This sharpened his critical scientific thinking, research and project design and execution, and programming skills. To this day, this experience is of great value.