Icing on the cake

Appointment of special professor at WUR

On 14 February 2025, special professor Ruud Bartholomeus delivered his inaugural address. Since 1 July 2024, he has been the professor of Plant Water Stress and Regional Water Management at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) for one day a week. That is in addition to his position as Chief Science Officer and Principal Scientist of the Ecohydrology team at KWR.

As a bridge-builder, Bartholomeus hopes to use his position at the university to, in particular, help and encourage many young researchers to make an impact in the water domain. He is also eager to generate attention for the important issue of how we can work together to safeguard adequate supplies of fresh water. “I think we can create a healthy groundwater system that can serve as a water buffer and water source if we adopt a cross-sectoral approach and let water and soil play a more leading role.”

Read the entire interview with Ruud Bartholomeus here.

Willem Koerselman Prize

Every year, we award the Willem Koerselman Prize to the KWR researcher(s) whose peer-reviewed article has been cited most in the previous year. The prize this year was awarded on 1 April 2025 to KWR researcher Gertjan Medema, the co-author of the article Minimizing errors in RT-PCR detection and quantification of SARS-CoV-1 RNA for wastewater surveillance, which was published in 2021 in the Science of the Total Environment journal.

The publication was cited 64 times in 2024. The article describes the collective knowledge – including the do’s and don’ts – of ‘state of the science’ technologies for using wastewater surveillance to see what is happening with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in society as a whole. Since the outbreak of the corona pandemic in 2020, wastewater surveillance has taken off and been applied in all sorts of ways. Read what the award means to Medema, and how he sees the future of wastewater surveillance, here.

H2O Prize for KWR paper

The prestigious H2O Prize for 2024 was awarded on 17 April 2025. It highlights the importance of innovative research in the water sector and contributes to the ongoing improvement of drinking water quality and ecological sustainability.

The third prize went to the article New methods for refining the toxicological risk assessment of chemicals in water (in Dutch) written by Sanah Majid, Renske Hoondert and Astrid Reus of KWR, Corine Houtman of Het Waterlaboratorium and the Free University of Amsterdam, and Merijn Schriks of Vitens.

The article introduces new ways to assess the health risks of chemicals in drinking water more accurately, which is essential for a rapid and accurate risk assessment of drinking water quality.

Julian Hinds Award

Former KWR CEO Dragan Savic received the Julian Hinds Award – an award from the Environmental and Water Resources Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) – in May 2025. The award is given annually to the author of an article or an individual who has made a valuable contribution to the development of water resources. Savic, who is still working hard as KWR’s current Global Advisor on Digital Sciences, is actively committed to supporting robust, sustainable and flexible water systems and infrastructure from the perspective of science.

According to the jury, what sets Savic apart is his leadership in the development and application of hydroinformatics tools, particularly in the modelling, optimisation, and management of water resources, water distribution and sewage systems, resulting in substantial cost savings for utilities worldwide.Savic himself stresses the importance of not forgetting the role of humans in the world of AI, for example by involving the social sciences. “Especially here at KWR, the impact of the human factor on what we want to accomplish in the water sector became clearer to me.”

Read the entire interview with Dragan Savic here.

Waterwijs Practice Award

On 12 June 2025, Gondwana, a computing model developed by KWR for mains infrastructure design, received the Waterwijs Practice Award. This award is presented biennially by the Dutch water utilities, the De Watergroep from Flanders and KWR. It honours the best application of scientific research in drinking water practice – such as innovative models, smart technologies or practices that deliver a demonstrable improvement in methods or operations.

There is also a Waterwijs public award, which was given to the WiCE project Aqua Ludens, a serious game for collaboration in the water chain. This team achieved most success in conveying their impact to a wider audience, and it therefore received most votes.

Watch short videos on all Waterwijs Practice Award 2025 candidates, including the winners, here.

Excellence Award in Membrane-based Water Treatment

From 13 to 18 September 2025, the 11th IWA Membrane Technology Conference took place in Korea, where KWR, with its partners, received the Membrane Technology Specialist Group Global Project Excellence Award in Membrane-based Water Treatment. The award went to the TKI Water Technology project Natural viruses for monitoring the integrity of membrane installations. The jury praised the project for its quality, innovation and leadership in the application of membrane technologies for water treatment.

The project developed a sensitive method using qPCR (Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction), in which naturally occurring (unknown) viruses in water are used to monitor the integrity of membrane systems in drinking water treatment plants. Following these common viruses in surface water before and after a membrane installation makes it possible to detect even the smallest membrane defects. This development provides a simple, non-invasive alternative to other monitoring methods such as challenge testing or the use of artificial tracers.

Nobel Peat Prize

As an expert on wet ecosystems – such as peatlands – and their interaction with their surroundings, KWR researcher Jelmer Nijp received the international Nobel Peat Prize on 12 December 2025. This annual award is given to innovative research that furthers knowledge about peatlands. Nijp received the digital medal for his publication Ecohydrological feedbacks increase water storage, streamflow and resilience of natural peatlands, which was published online in 2025 and in the Journal of Hydrology in January 2026.

It is well known that peatlands capture carbon and therefore play a key role in climate change. But the role of peat as a water buffer was poorly substantiated until now. Nijp’s publication, which he co-wrote with Swedish colleagues, proposed a newly developed model to remedy that situation. The jury was enthusiastic about the model because it provided a scientific basis for three important aspects of peat for the first time: that natural ecohydrological processes make peat retain more water, that more water remains available for the surrounding landscape during dry periods, and that peatlands themselves are, in this way, more resilient to drought and climate change. For the water sector, this knowledge is important because it shows how vital natural systems and nature restoration are for a robust water system.