KNOWLEDGE has become the central value of our current societies, and indeed these are now often called ‘knowledge societies’. In no place is knowledge more important than in ‘the world of the waters’; this being the world where water flows through what we call, following Leonardo da Vinci, the very veins and arteries of the biosphere. The relation of knowledge to this world has been a major preoccupation of Michael B. Abbott over many decades. He founded the subject that he called Computational Hydraulics in 1967 as a theoretical foundation to his work in modelling. This led to the MIKE systems of numerical models which he initiated at the Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI), which are now used in more than 110 countries with some 25,000 installations. He subsequently founded, in 1989, Hydroinformatics, as the application of advanced computation and communication technologies to problems of the aquatic environment. Hydroinformatics now has its own Journal of Hydroinformatics and major bi-annual conferences. His company, Knowledge Engineering BVBA, provides a consulting service in this area and others involving applications of knowledge.

Knowledge Engineering BVBA has long specialised in developing conjunctive knowledges, these being knowledges of how to bring together otherwise separate knowledges, so that these are knowledges about knowledges. A special attention is given to conjunctions of modern-scientific knowledge and various indigenous, autochthonic, narrative knowledges. These are essential to sociotechnical developments, where such technical developments as those of cheap solar-cell-powered radio Internet and mobile telephony, linked to judgement engines can be used to catalyse the coming to presence, or even the insurrection of otherwise repressed knowledges, such as those needed for culturally-integrated organic agricultures, aquacultures and (for example, ayurvedic) health care systems.
In this work, hydroinformatics becomes more concerned with communication alongside ongoing advances in computation. As part of this development, Knowledge Engineering has been more recently instrumental in founding the WaterKnowledge Initiative which is described in several of the more recent publications. Other innovations include the development of the concept of an understanding society in place of a knowledge society, the introduction of such concepts as knowledge supply chain analysis and extended knowledge halos as described in paper Applications of Numerical Modelling in Hydroinformatics and their corresponding business models.