Dr. Jeltsje Kemerink - Seyoum

Biography

Jeltsje Sanne Kemerink-Seyoum holds the position of Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Water Governance at the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education. She brings in over ten years professional experience in which she has combined her educational background in river engineering (MSc obtained in 2004 from Delft University of Technology) with socio-political aspects of water governance processes.

The research of Jeltsje mainly focuses on the critical analysis of policy interventions within the agricultural water domain. Amongst others, she carries out research to better understand the negotiation processes over access to, control over, and use of water resources between farmers at local level in various African countries and how these negotiations are affected by water policy reforms and investments in hydraulic infrastructure. Based on this research Jeltsje successfully defended her PhD dissertation in December 2015 at Delft University of Technology. In addition, Jeltsje is involved in interdisciplinary research on socio-hydrology in various Asian and African countries, in particular studying the response of society on flood risk and the distribution of flood risk in society, as well as research on the implications of climate financing mechanisms on access to land and water resources in rural areas of Ethiopia and Indonesia.

Besides her research activities, Jeltsje has been involved as Project Manager in a large-scale capacity development projects in the field of water and environmental management in amongst others Rwanda, Zimbabwe and South Africa. In addition, she has been involved in a climate change adaptation advisory project on the islands of Sao Tome and Principe for which she facilitates the stakeholder consultation meetings. Moreover, Jeltsje supports the activities of, and coordinates the collaboration with, WaterNet, a network of more than 70 universities and institutes in eastern and southern Africa that aim to strengthen educational and research capacity in the field of water management.

As lecturer Jeltsje has experience in delivering courses on various subjects including water governance, public participation, institutional analysis, legal pluralism and research methodology for qualitative social sciences. In 2011 she successfully obtained her University Teaching Qualification. Jeltsje actively supervised MSc student in their dissertation research on water governance related case studies in Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.

From 2011 to 2013 Jeltsje was appointed as the overall Programme Coordinator of the Master programme in Water Management and as such she has played a key role in the successful reaccreditation process of the programme. 

Jeltsje has held the position of Project Officer in the Office of the Director of UNESCO-IHE from 2005 to 2008 in which she has gained extensive experience in acquisition, management and monitoring & evaluation of research and capacity building projects. She was involved in the successful acquisition and contract negotiation of different multi-million euro projects for various clients (e.g. World Bank, UNDP, UNEP, EC, DGIS, Sida) in different parts of the world.

Before Jeltsje started working at UNESCO-IHE she conducted research assignments for Deltares and IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. 

Publications

PhD dissertation:

Kemerink, J.S. (2015) Policies lost in translation? Unravelling water reform processes in African waterscapes. PhD dissertation, Delft University of Technology. Leiden: Taylor and Francis. ISBN: 978-1-138-02943-9

Articles in refereed journals:

Di Baldassarre, G., J. S. Kemerink, M. Kooy, L. Brandimarte (2014) Floods and Societies: the Spatial Distribution of Water-related Disaster Risk and its Dynamics. Accepted for publication in WIREs Water.

Di Baldassarre, G., M. Kooy, J. S. Kemerink, L. Brandimarte (2013) Towards understanding the dynamic behaviour of floodplains as human-water systems. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss. 10: 3869–3895. [doi:10.5194/hessd-10-3869-2013]

Kemerink, J.S., L. E. Mendez, R. Ahlers, P. van der Zaag (2013) The question of inclusion and representation in rural South Africa: challenging the concept of Water User Associations as a vehicle for transformation. Water Policy 15: 243–257. [doi:10.2166/wp.2012.127]

Komakech, H.C., P. van der Zaag, M. L. Mul, T.A. Mwakalukwa, J.S. Kemerink (2012) Formalization of water allocation systems and impacts on local practices in the Hingilili subcatchment, Tanzania. International Journal of River Basin Management, 10 (3): 213-227. [doi:10.1080/15715124.2012.664774].

Kemerink, J.S., R. Ahlers, P. van der Zaag (2011) Contested water right in post-apartheid South-Africa: the struggle for water at catchment level. Water SA, 37 (4): 585-594. [http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/wsa.v37i4.16] 

Mul, M.L., J.S. Kemerink, N.F. Vyagusa, M.G. Mshana, P. van der Zaag, and H. Makurira (2011) Water allocation practices among smallholder farmers in the South Pare Mountains, Tanzania; can they be up-scaled? Agricultural Water Management 98(11): 1752-1760. [doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2010.02.014]

Kemerink, J.S., R. Ahlers, P. van der Zaag (2009) Assessment of the potential for hydro-solidarity in plural legal condition of traditional irrigation systems in northern Tanzania. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 34: 881-889. [doi:10.1016/j.pce.2009.06.012]

Kemerink, J.S., S.N. Munyao, K. Schwartz, R. Ahlers, P. van der Zaag (forthcoming) Why infrastructure still matters: unravelling water reform processes in an uneven waterscape in rural Kenya. Under review International Journal of the Commons.

Kemerink, J.S., N.L. T. Chinguno, S.D. Seyoum, R. Ahlers, P. van der Zaag (forthcoming) Jumping the water queue: changing waterscapes under water reform processes in rural Zimbabwe. Under review Natural Resources Forum.

Mendez, L. E., J.S. Kemerink, P. Wester, F. Molle (forthcoming) The quest for water: Strategizing water control and circumventing reform in rural South Africa. Under review International Journal on Water Resource Development. 

Chapters in books:

Kemerink, J.S., D. Mbuvi, Schwartz, K. (2012) Governance shifts in the water services sector: a case study of the Zambia water services sector. In Katko T., Juuti P.S. and Schwartz K. (eds) Water Services Management and Governance: Lessons for a Sustainable Future. IWA Publishing: 3-11.