Living Lab Nourishments
(WP 1)

Illustration by: Joost Fluitsma

WP 1 – Living Lab Nourishments

To design, monitor and learn – with stakeholders – from two nourishments along the Dutch coast

 

Start & end date

Year 1 – year 6

Work package leader

Deltares

Methodology

The coastal nourishments, co-designed and built with our partners, will act as the SOURCE field laboratory (“Living Labs”). There will be 2 Living Labs:

  1. Underwater nourishment (or ‘shoreface nourishment’ at 4 to 10 m depth) that is intended to migrate slowly towards the shore and feed the beach.
  2. Beach nourishment (from 2 m depth to the dune foot) which not only mitigates erosion but also adds recreational space and stimulates local dune growth.

The important intended innovation of the first nourishment (in close co-operation with Rijkswaterstaat) will be the use of non-native (wider-graded) sediment for a part of the nourishment. The second nourishment will be designed primarily for recreational purposes (together with the Recreational Sand Fund), which is unprecedented.

After construction, we will collect relevant data on the hydrodynamics, bathymetry, sediment composition and ecology, which will feed the technical work packages (WP 2) for improved understanding and modeling. Bathymetric surveys will be carried out at monthly to three-monthly intervals to monitor the reshaping of the nourishments and its efficiency for coastal functions. These measurements are much more detailed than existing surveys (e.g. compared to JARKUS-measurements1 with 250 m spacing and 1-yearly intervals).

The behavior of the first nourishment with non-native sediment will be compared against nourishments with regular sediment showing the effectiveness for coastal maintenance and ecology. Sediment samples will be collected at three-monthly intervals. Not only the grain-size distribution, but also the optical luminescence of the sediment will be determined with state-of-the-art sediment tracing methods (Optically Stimulated Luminescence; Reimann et al., 2015; Pearson et al., 2022), providing the unique possibility to distinguish the nourished sand from the native sediment and map sediment connectivity. Two frames with velocity measurement devices will be placed close to the nourishment, with the aim of collecting detailed model validation data. The measurements will be tailored to the needs of the work packages and other users. The data collected in this project will be stored with all relevant meta-properties, and will be made open-access available at a publicly accessible repository at Deltares (OpenDAP).

Description of research activities

The research in this work package will focus on the co-design and monitoring of the Living Lab nourishments. The outcomes and data will feed the other WPs:

  • Task 1.1a Co-design and construction of the Living Labs (WPs 3 and 4)
  • Task 1.1b Social cost and benefits of the Living Lab recreational sand nourishment in Zeeland (WPs 3 and 4)
  • Task 1.1b Monitoring programme with hydrodynamic, bathymetric, sediment and ecological measurements
  • Task 1.1d Open access monitoring data-set (WPs 2)
Productive interactions (co-design and co-creation)

RWS will carry out coastal nourishments as part of their so-called Kustlijnzorg (Coastline Care) programme. One of these is intended to be a co-design with the SOURCE research team and its partners. Next to these, the Recreational Sand Fund and the SOURCE team will explore the possibilities for a recreational nourishment in Zeeland.

Inside the SOURCE project this work package acts as an integrator as the Living Lab data will have multiple use:

  1. The spreading of the sediment at the nourishment is necessary for the quantification of sediment pathways (WP 2.1), for the validation for the numerical models to predict of nourishment impacts (WP 2.4) and for the assessment of the spreading of the out-of-specification sediment (WP 2.3).
  2. It is expected that the recreational beach nourishment in Zeeland will stimulate the growth of marram grass and small embryonal dunes above water, and potentially lead to sheltered areas below water creating valuable new habitats to be evaluated in WP 2.2.
  3. The potential use of more easily attainable (and therefore “greener” and cheaper) out-of-specification sediment will be relevant for the social costs & benefit analysis (WP 3.3) and the pilot will add temporary recreational area and may improve spatial quality (WP 3.2) which can be evaluated in an interactive way with the stakeholders (WP 3.1).
  4. Co-creation of the Living Labs with stakeholders (WPs 3 and 4).
Contribution to project (impact)

The Living Lab monitoring data and co-design process will directly support all of the SOURCE scientific impacts and outputs to realize the outcomes and impact. More specifically, the Living Labs sand nourishments offer a first, safe test of the intended paradigm shift and co-creation (Impact). The measurement data will be available under an open license at a publicly accessible location, which will stimulate fundamental research at universities as well as innovations in the Dutch water sector (Impact).

Key results

[Here the key results of this WP will be presented.]