Go to homepage
Find educational resourcesKnowledge & expertiseCommunities
NL|EN
Privacy policy
Creative CommonsCreative Commons AttributionSURFFunded by the European Union

Filter

Search results (8)

HBO/WO

MBO

June 17, 2026

AgriLemma 2.0: A serious game for exploring dilemmas in agriculture

In AgriLemma, you are a farmer in Europe managing your own farm across 8 seasons. You grow six types of crops — potatoes, sugar beets, rapeseed, corn, wheat, and chickpeas — each requiring resources such as seeds, water, nutrients, and workers. Players must run, invest in, and improve their farm with sustainable technologies while balancing competing priorities and navigating uncertainties like weather events and pest attacks. The objective is to maximize overall farm health, which is determined by three dimensions: environmental health (positive ecological impact), social health (worker satisfaction), and financial health (farm profitability). Players must strategize across all three dimensions simultaneously — decisions that boost profit may come at an environmental cost, and vice versa. The game makes these trade-offs tangible, encouraging reflection on what sustainable farming really requires. ------------------------------ Learning objectives: · Experiment with different strategies — to operationalize and adapt an approach under pressure, and to reflect on how well it held up. · Expose students to issues of risk management — to plan, control, and explain the reasoning behind in-game choices relating to sustainability, soil conservation practices, integrated crop management, weeding, and pest management, and to learn how to respond when conditions change. · Experience the complexity of decision-making — to take into account weather and policy uncertainties, sustainability pressures, economic realities, and the broader context in which farm decisions are made. --------------------------------Practical information: · Format: Board game (physical/ print-and-play) · Players: 2-4 players (extendable to 8 by playing in teams of 2) · Duration: 3 hours, including onboarding and debrief · Level: Higher education / Stakeholder engagement · Language: English --------------------------------Credits: AgriLemma was originally designed as part of the WATERAGRI project. The second version, including a full redesign of the graphics, was developed with funding support from the TU Delft Open Science Programme course "Civic Engagement in Action: Empowering Researchers and Educators to Make an Impact". Game design: Dr. ir. Aashna Mittal - TU Delft, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management Graphic design and illustration: Gracia Bovenberg-Murris and Michelle de Smit – TU Delft GameLab Note on image generation: The images in the tech cards and the border of the main game board were created using AI-generated imagery. The constructed wetlands card image is also AI-generated. All other cards and box art are hand-drawn or created in Adobe Illustrator. Note on usability: The print-and-play version of the game has been optimized for office printing.

Document

Aashna Mittal, Gracia Bovenberg-Murris, Michelle de Smit

October 1, 2025

An analysis of the current developments and scenarios for the transition to a fossil-free energy society this century

This century, greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrogen oxides must be significantly reduced. Greenhouse gases absorb and emit infrared radiation that contributes to global warming, which can lead to irreversible negative consequences for humans and the environment. Greenhouse gases are caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as crude oil, coal, and natural gas, but livestock farming and agriculture are also to blame. In addition, deforestation contributes to more greenhouse gases. Of the natural greenhouse gases, water vapor is the main cause of the greenhouse effect, accounting for 90%. The remaining 10% is caused from high to low by carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides, chlorofluorocarbons, and ozone. In addition, there are industrial greenhouse gases such as fluorinated hydrocarbons, sulphur hexafluoride, and nitrogen trifluoride that contribute to the greenhouse effect too. Greenhouse gases are a major cause of climate change, with far-reaching consequences for the welfare of humans and animals. In some regions, extreme weather events like rainfall are more common, while others are associated with more extreme heat waves and droughts. Sea level rise caused by melting ice and an increase in forest fires are undesirable effects of climate change. Countries in low-lying areas fear that sea level rise will force their populations to move to the higher-lying areas. Climate change is affecting the entire world. An estimated 30-40% o f the carbon dioxide released by the combustion of fossil fuels dissolves into the surface water, resulting in an increased concentration of hydrogen ions. This causes the seawater to become more acidic, resulting in a decreasing of carbonate ions. Carbonate ions are an important building block for forming and maintaining calcium carbonate structures of organisms such as oysters, mussels, sea urchins, shallow water corals, deep sea corals, and calcareous plankton.

Open (Access) Text Book

Folkert Koopman

April 30, 2025

PFAS – Persistent Micropollutants in the Water Cycle

This report presents the final course material that was developed for the online learning module on persistent micropollutants – PFAS. The document can be used as a stand-alone manual to fully individually follow the entire course, from week to week. It includes the links to the video materials that were developed for the course within the project, fully integrated within the reading material. The course forms a bridge between scientists and professionals working in the water cycle. So far, the information on PFAS has been available in a scattered manner, making it difficult for non-experts to get a complete introductory overview. This course was designed to compile information on PFAS through the water cycle, from production to use and final treatment. The course is built up in an intuitive way: it starts with a general introduction on the origin, chemistry and nomenclature of PFAS; national standards and reported concentrations in the urban water cycle are presented; analytics are explained; the course concludes with technologies for separation and final destruction of PFAS. Each chapter (or week) contains written textbook material, videos and additional reading material. Development of the course has been a co-production between PROMISCES and TU Delft, as TU Delft has an extensive educational support system including a professional recording studio and an expert learning assessment system for engineering education. All materials including videos are freely available for the general public. If the learner wants the full experience of having virtual classmates, get access to all exercises and receive a certificate and credit points after successful completion of the course, one can register at online-learning.tudelft.nl. The course was developed by two environmental engineers with a professional educational background (Mariska Ronteltap and Kim Lompe). The educational videos include knowledge clips (recorded lectures in a studio), videos in laboratories, interviews with PROMISCES project partners and videos on location. To be able to follow the course a basic understanding of chemistry is required; other than that, the course is fully understandable for non-experts. Collaboration between TU Delft, Delfland Water Authority, and the EU Project PROMISCES.

Document

Kim Maren Lompe, Mariska Ronteltap

December 6, 2021

Building with Nature & Beyond: Principles for designing nature based engineering solutions

This book is based upon the edX MOOCs Engineering: Building with Nature and Beyond Engineering: Building with Nature. The Engineering: Building with Nature MOOC, explores the use of natural materials and ecological processes in achieving effective and sustainable hydraulic infrastructure designs, distilling Engineering and Ecological Design Principles. In the Beyond Engineering: Building with Nature course, the missing element of Social Design Principles is developed and taught.

Open (Access) Text Book

Jill H. Slinger

February 16, 2021

African Resilience

Welcome to AFRICAN RESILIENCE. By using both their differences and similarities, for instance in background, interests and creativity, four students of the MSc Environmental Engineering of the TU Delft created a game that aims to increase the resilience of the city of Cape Town, South Africa. The resilience of a city is determined by its ability to prepare, adapt and recover from stresses, long during destructive events and its following more sudden shocks. The game was created by Charlotte Raven, Liselotte Wisman, Ranjeev Bhatia and Yidan Xu.

Document

Ranjeev Bhatia, Yidan Xu, Charlotte Raven

February 16, 2021

Save the city: Maputo Resilience Game

This game models how Maputo responds to shocks and stresses and strives to increase its resilience from 2020 through 2050. There are four subsystems in the game: agriculture, health care, society and culture, and infrastructure. Each subsystem represents an important part of the city and should try to increase their resilience through developing and maintaining adaptation measures. Each measure has a different effect on the resilience of a subsystem. There are a range of shocks and stresses that can disrupt the city. The game takes time, the government’s budget, probability, and cooperation into account to represent some of the complex factors at play real world.

Document

Anika Vroom, Steven Lin, Nils Hoebe, Ananya Yuvaraj

October 5, 2020

Typhoons in Manila

Metropolitan Manila is a highly populated area and lies in the most-active tropical cyclone basin in the world. Tropical cyclones (or typhoons) are strong cyclonic storms that develop over warm ocean waters and when moving across coastal regions can bring immense damage to coastal cities. This report investigates the cascading effects typhoons have had in the past on Metro Manila and looks into possible solution strategies to strengthen the resilience of the urban area. Poverty is one of the most prevalent issues in Manila. Because of improper housing options and poor infrastructure, low-income communities are forced to live in flood-prone areas and therefore highly vulnerable to disaster events that are accompanied by flooding or storm surges. Informal settlements are the part of the urban system most affected by typhoons and in special need for attention in mitigation work. Proposed solution strategies include improvements in urban drainage, inclusive relocation plans, livelihood assistance and capacity building programs, weak solid waste management practices and rehabilitation of the wetland ecosystem.

Document

Vanessa Schaller

July 21, 2017

Coupling Sanitation Systems with Agricultural Production

Now you know why it is important to include faecal sludge management as part of each sanitation solution. You have also heard about the potential benefits for a community when recourses are recovered from faecal sludge. But how does this work? How can we make valuable products from human waste? Let’s find out in the next video with PhD researcher Rosanne Wielemaker. She will explain how the nutrients in human waste can become a valuable resource by using them as fertilizers in agricultural production. Learning Objectives: Understand the value human waste in making valuable products like fertilizers in agricultural production. Describe adaptation; robustness and/or intervention strategies for STE systems.

Website

Rosanne Wielemaker