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15.1: E.1- Abstract

  • Page ID
    16460
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    During the last century, various engineering works in the Dutch coastal system have been carried out for flood defence and / or land reclamation purposes. Among these engineering works, two of the tidal inlets in the Dutch Wadden Sea and three of the estuaries in the southwestern delta were entirely or partly closed or semi-closed. These closures of the tidal basins have been impacting the development of not only the (semi-) enclosed basins themselves, but also the adjacent coast and tidal basins. They influence the large scale morphological development and the sediment budget, and thereby impacting the maintenance of the coast by sand nourishment. On smaller scale they influence the developments of the channels, inter-tidal flats and other morphological elements. Especially the influence on the morphological development of the inter-tidal flats has impacts on the ecological system. In this paper we evaluate the effects of all these closures to the morphological development of the various parts of the Dutch coastal system. The evaluation is mainly based on analysis of field data. Bathymetric data have been collected since 1926. Further use is also made of the results of earlier modelling studies. Special attention will be paid to the influence of the location of the closure and the type of the closure. It is shown that the total sediment deficit for establishing the new morphological equilibrium caused by a closure is very much dependent on the location of the closure relative to the mouth of the tidal basin. We will also show the different environmental problems caused by the different types of closures. We believe that the lessons learned from the evaluation can also be relevant for elsewhere in the world.


    This page titled 15.1: E.1- Abstract is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Judith Bosboom & Marcel J.F. Stive (TU Delft Open) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.