Dr. Van Cauwenbergh holds a position of Associate Professor Water and Societal Transitions at IHE Delft. Nora is an expert in water and sustainable development with over a 15 years of experience in academia and the private sector. She is passionate about contributing to a green and inclusive society through co-design of innovative natural resources management considering different value systems.
In the water sector, she has worked on participatory design and use of software tools and protocols for stakeholder negotiation in water management. Her research and capacity building expertise is built on experience in management of water scarcity in semi-arid zones (Spain, Algeria, Saudi-Arabia and Morocco), integrated water resources management, planning and conflict management (India, Palestine, Mexico, Myanmar, Mali and Bangladesh), and integration of nature-based solutions in basin and city planning to reduce flood and drought risk (Colombia, Chile and EU).
As business owner and lead business development of green solutions in the private sector, she has performed water/energy audits at different scales and co-designed and implemented green buildings. She has academic positions in VUB/KULeuven (IUPWARE) and IHE Delft, where she coordinates and teaches various water management and planning topics and supervises MSc and PhD candidates.
Publications
A complete list of publications can be found in Google Scholar.
Other information
- White paper on “Allies for climate resilience – closing the gap in protection, investment and information to support EU Climate Adaptation” – output of 5 national and 1 EU roundtable with DG Clima and representatives of cities, insurance sector, DRR, planning authorities, August 2020. E. Lopez-Gunn1, N. Van Cauwenbergh 2, R. Marchal 3, P. van der keur4, J. Weinberg5, B. Mayor1, L. Vay1, Z. Shubber and F. Nanu
- Guidelines on implementation and investment plans for adaptation (under translation for practitioners). Includes checklist for self-assessment of readiness levels and participatory adaptive planning approach. Reference: Van Cauwenbergh, N., Dourojeanni, P., Mayor, B., Altamirano, M., Dartee, K., Basco-Carrera, L., Piton, G., Tacnet, JM., Manez, M., Lopez-Gunn, E. (2020). Guidelines for the definition of implementation and investment plans for adaptation. EU Horizon 2020 NAIAD Project, Grant Agreement N°730497.
- Video on participatory methods and tools for water management in “Governance for Transboundary Freshwater Security” (GWP)
- Altaguax website and DSS: interactive multi-criteria analysis tool (altaguax.un-ihe.org offline since 2019), used by Andalusian Water Agency to support compliance with EU WFD on stakeholder participation in river basin planning. Video available upon request
- Voting app for water conflict management – web-based preference elicitation and visualization to identify different opinions on water interventions and objectives based on PCA. Code available upon request.
- Technical report on alternative water management strategies for urban water security in Guadalajara and Leon, used in high-level government discussion. Godinez-Madrigal, J, Claura-Gutierrez, P.,Van Cauwenbergh, N., van der Zaag, P. (2019). Dilemas en las estrategias de gestion y abastecimiento del agua en Guadalajara y Leon para el caso del proyecto El Zapotillo. Available here.