Bonsai Project Partners Convene for
Final 2025 Meeting at Dutch Military Base
On November 24, 25, and 26, 2025, the Bonsai project gathered for this year's final live partner meeting at a military base in Vught, where we were guests of the Dutch Ministry of Defense. These three intensive days brought together our international team to advance the project and ensure collaboration.
Meeting Highlights
The meeting delivered several key outcomes that will shape our work in the coming years.
- We gained valuable insights into the Dutch military's role during crisis situations such as flooding, deepening our understanding of civil-military cooperation.
- We dove into the work of work package two and three to take steps in creating test plans. These Test plans are valuable for the project and provide insight and opportunity to combine activities and achieve more together.
- All participants engaged in a live crisis simulation exercise, testing our collaborative response capabilities in real-time.
- We also conducted a field visit with colleagues from regional water authority Aa en Maas, observing flood management infrastructure and beaver locations firsthand.
Bonsai Team in action during Crisis Exercise
Live Crisis Exercise
The Bonsai Team participated in a live exercise were we recreated a crisis room where the decision had to be taken that can save lives and millions of euro’s. We learned to use the PAAA (Process-Actual situation-Analyses-Actions) method to structure a crisis meeting and got great insight into what steps have to be taken in a crisis situation and how communication plays an essential part. And we really had a good time doing this together.
Field Visit
First we visited the Dutch Militairy Engineers, 105th division. On their training ground we were introduced into the capabilities of this regiment and were told the impressive story of their deployment during the 2021 floods in Limburg.
Then, Hanneke Kloosterboer and Bas de Boer from the regional water authority Aa en Maas water took us on a walk to various locations where we could see Aa en Maas's work in real life. We learned about the region's water safety challenges and the problems caused by beavers. This topic plays a major role within Bonsai, so this information was useful to many.
Once again topped off by an excellent lunch provided by the Dutch Military.
A Word of Thanks
The people
of the Dutch Defense graciously hosted us at their Vught facility throughout
these three days. We extend our sincere gratitude to all staff members for
their warm welcome.