On Monday the 7^th of April the first Boussinesq Spring meeting took place. Especially organised for young and early-career scientist, but of course everyone with a scientific background in hydrology was welcome. The meeting, held at Wageningen University, started off with an interesting presentation from Bob Su (ITC) on land surface fluxes. After the key note the first pitch round started, with only 2 minutes per presentation. The pitch round was a perfect opportunity for all participants to present their current research, ask for advice, shameless advertise the EGU poster or talk, or just to drop an idea. There was a large variety in the talks and the response of the public on the pitch-concept was exclusively positive. There were just some people that had difficulties with sticking to the two-minutes limit…

After a long break with coffee, tea, and chocolate-eggs for the spring feeling, the morning continued with a presentation from Miriam Coenders on a novel method to estimate surface fluxes and a presentation from Bram te Brake on the use of satellite data to identify clay swelling and shrinkage. Again, this part of the day was closed with a 2-minutes-pitch round.

After three presentations and sixteen pitches, it was definitely time for a good lunch. On long tables we enjoyed the soup, the muffins, the sandwiches and the fresh fruit, to gain some energy again for the afternoon excursion.

For the excursion, a visit to the Speulderbos-site was planned. After a bus trip and a nice walk through one of the oldest forests of the Netherlands, we reached the measurement site and the flux tower. It was a pity that RIVM had just decided two months earlier to remove most of the measurement equipment, but with some fantasy we could imagine the equipment on the tower ourselves. And of course, there was still the possibility to go to the top of the tower! Some sportive people chose to go up in the tower with the stairs, but also the comfortable option (the elevator) was used to enjoy the view on top of the tower. We were lucky with the nice weather and the views were stunning! The whole program of the day was in the end slightly delayed and therefore we had to skip the afternoon discussions, but of course there was plenty of time for an informal drink to have a chat with all the attendees. The goal of this day, to meet some colleague-scientists and to exchange ideas, was definitely achieved!

Program

Morning program:
09:30 Walk in/coffee
10:00 Bob Su keynote
10:45 Pitches
11:00 Break
11:30 Miriam Coenders (TUD): ‘Measuring evaporation and transpiration rates with DTS’
11:50 Bram te Brake (WUR): ‘In situ and InSAR estimations of changes in clay soil water content’
12:10 Pitches

Afternoon program:
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Visit to field site
16:00 Discussion with drinks
17:00 More drinks