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Kim Anema MSc

Project Coordinator

Biography

Kim Anema is a researcher with cross-sectoral and international experience on the field of community governance. She holds a MSc degree in Public Administration and Policy Studies (VU University) where she specialized in public participation and interactive policy making. Kim has deployed and extended this knowledge working in the fields of emergency management (Netherlands Red Cross) and urban water management (MWH). In both capacities she repeatedly functioned as a frontrunner or trailblazer for new projects and perspectives. In 2010 her participatory approach in solving flood issues in a Dutch village was awarded by MWH Global for its innovative value.

Kim has approximately ten years of professional experience with community management, consulting and research.  She worked for different NGO’s, on various community projects and as a consultant for MWH and her experience provides her with a unique position on the crossroad between water and disaster management, and between research / innovation and practice.

With her PhD research on building community resilience to floods, she clusters her divergent experiences. As both flood warning messages and relief efforts gain impact when they fit with existing local culture and social structures, ‘empowerment of end-users’ and stakeholder collaboration is a central theme in her work. Recent work focuses on the merits of modern information and communication technology; which are true game changers in the field of community engagement and emergency management. Kim studied that phenomenon extensively in Brisbane after the 2011 summer floods in Queensland. 

RECENT & ONGOING PROJECTS

WeSenseIt Citizen Observatories of Water (2012-2016)

In order to harness environmental data and knowledge to effectively and efficiently manage water resources, the WeSenseIt project (EU FP7) will develop a citizen observatory of water. The key aspect of WeSenseIt is the direct involvement of user communities in the data collection process: WeSenseIt enables citizen involvement by collecting data via an innovative combination of easy-to-use sensors and monitoring technologies as well as harnessing citizens collective intelligence. This citizen observatory of water is being be tested and validated in three case studies in collaboration with water management and civil protection agencies in the UK, the Netherlands and Italy. Kim Anema is liaison for the partners of the case study in the Netherlands and researches the impact of citizen observatories on community resilience.

FEWS Niger (2014-2016)

In a consortium with Deltares, IHE and OIEau, Kim Anema is currently working on a Flood Early Warning System for the Autorite Basin du Niger (ABN). ABN collects rain fall and water level data along the Niger river in nine different countries and uses it, amongst other things, to forecast flood events. In this Early Warning project, Kim Anema is responsible for the route and format of the communication of these forecasts and the associated alert messages.

Drivers and Barriers for implementing Multi-Layered Safety in FRM (2013)

Practical implementation of Multi-Layered safety (MLS) in Dutch flood risk management policies proves to be difficult. In assignment of the Dutch Rijkswaterstaat, Kim Anema and her team compared the arguments behind implementation of flood risk management strategies based on protection, preparedness and/or prevention between the Netherlands and the United States. In a total of six cases where MLS was being implemented - three in the Netherlands and three in the US - the motivations for choosing specific measures were explored, compared and evaluated.

Social Networks under Pressure (2011-2012)

In 2012 Kim Anema advised the Dutch National Deltaprogam on how to incorporate community resilience in their plans for emergency preparedness and crisis management. She based this advice on her experience in Queensland, where she analysed the response and recovery to the 2011 summer floods in the City of Brisbane and assessed the added value of online social media. Her operationalization of community resilience enables her to select the most effective pre- and post-event measures per situation.