Pieter de Laat

Acting Head Water Engineering Department

Resume

Pieter J.M. De Laat (1944) received the Engineering degree (equivalent to MSc) in Land and Water Development from the Wageningen University and Research Centre in 1972 after which he joined IHE as a lecturer/researcher. He obtained a PhD from the same university in 1980.

His research focused on modelling unsaturated flow and evapotranspiration in relation to crop production. He is the author of MUST, a simulation model that is used in the field of soil-water-plant research and agricultural water management.

Dr. De Laat has extensive international experience in curriculum development, post-graduate education and institution building projects. In Delft he contributed for more than 30 years to the Masters Programme in Hydrology and Water Resources and he was also often responsible for its execution.

Outside The Netherlands he made significant contributions to the education and research components of various capacity building projects of IHE, such as in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Jemen, Zimbabwe and Palestine.

He organised and/or coordinated group training programmes in Delft for participants from Palestine, Jordan and China. Dr. De Laat coordinates the PhD programme at UNESCO-IHE, which comprises about 50 PhD students who study in Delft or in their home country (sandwich programme).

Dr. De Laat is the director of the Small-scale Water Treatment Facilities for Domestic Use and Artificial Recharge with Surface Water project which includes among others interesting aspects of wadi hydrology. It aims to enhance the cooperation between the Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian Parties on water resources in the region.

Apart from soil-water-plant relations, Dr. De Laat takes a keen interest in catchment (and wadi) hydrology and rainfall-runoff modelling, in particular in relation to climate change. He is presently involved in research on the effect of human activities and climate variability on the discharge regime of the Meuse.

Dr. De Laat lectures on subjects such as Soil-Water-Plant Relations, Unsaturated Flow Modelling and he presents various courses on (general) Hydrology. He is the Netherlands Representative for HOMS and a member of the National Committee for the IHP/OHP.