Ir. Hermen Smit
Lecturer / Researcher in River Basin Governance
Biography
Hermen is a Ph.D. candidate in water governance at UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education. His research examines the intersection of hydrology, engineering and politics to understand the spatial and temporal dynamics of water flows in the Nile Basin.
At UNESCO-IHE Hermen is working on his dissertation with the provisional title "Shaping the Blue Nile basin - water flow dynamics and manipulations between the Ethiopian highlands and the Gezira Irrigation scheme in Sudan". The dissertation will provide insights into how practices of water manipulation, calculation and regulation shape and are shaped by the water and sediment flows of the Eastern Nile Basin. For more information about the project see http://www.unesco-ihe.org/Blue-Nile-Hydrosolidarity/5.-Flow-dynamics-and-manipulations-of-Blue-Nile-waters
Educated as a water engineer at Delft University of Technology (M.Sc. 2003 - hons), Hermen worked for four years as a consultant on irrigation and drainage in the Netherlands and Bangladesh, where he got intrigued by the continuous reshaping of water technologies during design, construction and use.
After completing a Master's degree in Environment and Resource Management at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, Hermen joined UNESCO-IHE in 2008. For his PhD dissertation (expected completion December 2013) he did two years of field work in Ethiopia and Sudan. During this period he studied drainage in the Ethiopian highlands, dam operation on the Blue Nile and irrigation in the Gezira scheme in Sudan. Hermen lectured in the Research Methodology and Water Governance modules and is a thesis advisor in the Water Management programme.