Development of new dunes in the Dutch Delta: nature compensation and ‘building with nature’

A new dune area was constructed by beach and foreshore nourishments along the Delfland Coast in the southwestern Netherlands. The new area is intended to be a compensation for losses of existing high quality dunes in nearby areas, due to the use/construction of Maasvlakte 2, the new harbour extensio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of coastal conservation 2014-10, Vol.18 (5), p.505-513
Main Authors: van der Meulen, Frank, van der Valk, Bert, Baars, Laurens, Schoor, Eduard, van Woerden, Hans
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Beaches
Brackish
Buildings
Coastal Sciences
Coastal zone management
Coasts
Compensation
Construction
Deltas
Dune soils
Dunes
Earth and Environmental Science
Environmental monitoring
Geography
Geomorphology
Grasslands
Groundwater
Habitats
Harbors
landscapes
Monitoring
Nature
Nature Conservation
Oceanography
Remote Sensing/Photogrammetry
Sand
soil
Soil water
Valleys
Vegetation
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Summary:A new dune area was constructed by beach and foreshore nourishments along the Delfland Coast in the southwestern Netherlands. The new area is intended to be a compensation for losses of existing high quality dunes in nearby areas, due to the use/construction of Maasvlakte 2, the new harbour extension of Rotterdam opening in 2013. The target habitats for compensation include dry grey dunes and moist dune valley grassland. Due to the habitat type, the nourished material had to have a special character. The nourishment was carried out according to a special design and initial development of the new area had to follow certain pathways. In order to meet the compensation requirements in time. Careful monitoring is done to assess whether development of the new habitat is taking place in the direction of the desired target habitats. This paper reports on the construction of the new area and on the first years of development and monitoring. The monitoring mainly concerns development of the abiotic landscape elements, geomorphology, groundwater and soils. The lessons learned from this area are discussed in the light of the development of other recent young nature areas in the sandy Dutch delta coast. This gives new insights for coastal management in general in the context of building with nature.
ISSN:1400-0350
1874-7841
DOI:10.1007/s11852-014-0315-2