Climate Action Programme


The Climate Action Programme was launched in 2021 and functions as a community for climate action on the TU Delft campus and beyond. We coordinate various events, activities and functions, providing a central platform for climate related research, education and innovation at TU Delft. Through these efforts, we help to bring to fruition our university’s goal of creating impact for a sustainable society.

Our four overarching themes of Climate Science, Climate Change Mitigation, Climate Change Adaptation and Climate Change Governance are composed of Flagships. Researchers from different disciplines co-operate within the Flagships, and dedicated researchers have been appointed to each Flagship. We foster co-operation within Flagships, between the Flagships, with other climate related researchers and with external stakeholders and partners to secure societal impact.

We actively collaborate with other TU Delft initiatives including:

There is always a reason not to act. Let’s do something about this. Time is running out

― Prof Herman Russchenberg

Climate Action News

06 February 2020

Roots for riverbanks

Roots for riverbanks

The Netherlands has had an indissoluble relationship with water throughout history. Nowadays, 2400 km of waterways flowing through its veins use timber retaining walls along their banks. A more eco-friendly solution than brick or concrete but, still, not as sustainable as it could be. Civil Engineer Abhijith Kamath is researching an alternative method to use tree roots to strengthen waterways’ banks. Making Dutch channels greener in every way.

05 February 2020

The breathing of dikes

The breathing of dikes

When looking at a dike, you wouldn’t be able to detect any motion in this robust structure. Though in fact there is. On a millimetre level, dikes expand and shrink in relation to the weather conditions. Ece Özer showed that observing this ‘breathing’ of dikes could help prevent catastrophic flooding events. She used this feature to create an innovative model based on satellite data to better detect weaknesses in a dike.

04 February 2020

Not a band-aid but a feeder solution for our coasts

Not a band-aid but a feeder solution for our coasts

At the weekend Matthieu de Schipper likes to surf the waves but on weekdays he studies how they transport the sand along the coast and up and down beaches. ‘Sea level rise is a threat to coasts across the globe. I want to use the forces of nature to provide engineering solutions to this problem on a global scale’. At the Sand Motor project in the Netherlands De Schipper is training students to do the necessary fieldwork. In all weathers.

01 February 2020

What the Wadden can teach us

What the Wadden can teach us

Intertidal zones are crucial for the protection of our coast and as stop-overs for migrating birds. But, increasingly, many of these sand and mudflats are disappearing permanently underneath the waves. Cynthia Maan investigated how by cooperating with nature and using a systems-based approach these precious resources can be saved.

30 January 2020

Making dikes safer with a bass guitar

Making dikes safer with a bass guitar

Playing a bass guitar on top of a dike. It’s not something you see a TU Delft scientist do every day. Yet this is exactly how post-doc Juan Aguilar-López tested his experiment on dike monitoring with the use of fiber optic cables. A technology which could greatly improve dike safety in the future.


Climate Action News

24 February 2023

16 million to keep the Dutch delta livable - even as it changes

16 million to keep the Dutch delta livable - even as it changes

Deltas and coastal plains are attractive places to live: fertile, flat, and open to the sea. These lowlands are, however, also vulnerable to climate change and sea-level rise. To better predict how deltas develop in the future, a thorough understanding is needed of biogeomorphology- how organisms, currents, waves, water, and sand discharge shape the delta-landscape. It was announced today that Δ-ENIGMA, a project focusing on this formation of the delta landscape, is one of the projects that will be funded from the National Roadmap for Large-Scale Research Infrastructure (LSRI) call of the Dutch Research Counsil (NWO).

20 February 2023

16 million to keep the Dutch delta livable - even as it changes

16 million to keep the Dutch delta livable - even as it changes

Deltas and coastal plains are attractive places to live: fertile, flat, and open to the sea. These lowlands are, however, also vulnerable to climate change and sea-level rise. It was announced today that Δ-ENIGMA, a project focusing on this formation of the delta landscape, is one of the projects that will be funded from the National Roadmap for Large-Scale Research Infrastructure (LSRI) call of the Dutch Research Counsil (NWO)

20 February 2023

€18 million for research on the sustainable use of our subsurface

€18 million for research on the sustainable use of our subsurface

Increased use of the subsurface, for example for geothermal energy production or subsurface storage, is crucial for achieving the (inter)national goals for greenhouse gas emissions. Today it was announced that EPOS-eNLarge, a research project that focuses on efficient and safe use of the Dutch subsurface, is one of the projects to be awarded through the Dutch Research Council (NWO) Large-scale Research Infrastructure call. The 10-year project will receive 17.9 million euros from NWO.

09 February 2023

From concrete waste to concrete buildings

From concrete waste to concrete buildings

Earth’s primary resources are finite. Human inventiveness, however, isn’t. At TU Delft’s laboratories, Francesco Di Maio is working on the recycling of concrete waste. Just like the Phoenix, the mythological bird that rises from its own ashes, Di Maio wants new concrete buildings to arise from their predecessors waste. He hopes his technologies will help to transform urban economies into self-sustaining loops.

06 February 2023

'Safe-by-design' chemical recycling of plastic waste

'Safe-by-design' chemical recycling of plastic waste

Ana Somoza-Tornos, Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, has received Seed Funding from the TU Delft Safety & Security Institute for the safe-by-design chemical recycling of plastic waste