Karel Heijnert is a senior consultant and project manager with over 30 years of experience in flood risk management, design of water management systems and integrated water resources management, and flood and drought forecasting and early warning. Throughout his career, he has worked in specialist consultancy and applied research projects in both The Netherlands and abroad. The development and adoption of innovative approaches, datasets and tools has always had his interest. He has been responsible for the development of national and regional flood early warning systems in United States, United ingdom, Netherlands, Canada, Indonesia, Tonga, Samoa and other countries.

In 2019, he joined Royal HaskoningDHV (RHDHV) as water management consultant an d project manager specialist. Since then, he has worked extensively on planning projects mainly in Viet Nam, Philippines and elsewhere in Southeast Asia that focus on flood risk and water resources management, and regional development. This includes the recently completed development of the Mekong Delta Integrated Regional Planning in Viet Nam. Currently, he is based in The Philippines and working flood risk management projects in various river basins throughout the country.