It is not the type of conference that attracts headlines, but the World Canal conference was a very succesful one for the two Dutch speakers who were flown in into Kingston, Ontario. Daan Rijks of DHV engineers (2007: 217 mln Euro turnover) and Arjan Hijdra of Rijkswaterstaat talked about the Dutch canal systems and the upgrades and maintenance. It turned out, that not everyone at the conference knew that Holland was a country of canals. In fact, countries like Germany and the USA are looking to us for technology in the watersector.

Both Daan en Arjan went home with dozens of new contacts and foreign interest in how the Dutch manage their canals. Daan spoke about the redevelopment of the once closed canals (closed to make space for highways and parking lots) in the town of Gouda (of cheese fame) and Arjan talked passionately about the Zuid Willemsvaart in the south of The Netherlands and how it gets a hundreds of millions of dollars overhaul to make it suitable for shipping and recreation again.

Related web sites:

• DHV Netherlands (in English)
• Rijkswaterstaat (in Dutch)
• NWP (in English)