Building with Nature as integrated design of infrastructures

Many people associate Building with Nature with its flagship project, the Sand Motor. This mega-nourishment redefined the role of natural processes in civil engineering projects, demonstrating that instead of ‘do no harm’ as the highest possible supporting goal of coastal infrastructure, the design could incorporate natural processes to attain...

A novel coastal landscape model for sandy systems: Community base for interdisciplinary research on coastal evolution

A common measure to mitigate erosion along sandy beaches is the implementation of sand nourishments. The design and societal acceptance of such a soft mitigation measure demands information on the expected evolution at various time scales ranging from a storm event to multiple decades. Process-based morphodynamic models are increasingly applied...

The Sand Motor: A Nature-Based Response to Climate Change: Findings and Reflections of the Interdisciplinary Research Program NatureCoast

NatureCoast is the largest research program that focused on the Sand Motor, a large sandy peninsula, constructed in 2011 on the Dutch North Sea coast near The Hague. This unprecedented pilot project involved placing 21.5 million m3 of sand on and in front of the beach with the aim that it would spread along the coast. The Sand Motor<br/>is a...

Impact of sand nourishments on hydrodynamics and swimmer safety

Artificial sand nourishments are a common measure to mitigate coastal erosion problems. Such nourishments can have an impact on currents and waves near the beach, especially when the nourishment has a large size. As nourished beaches often have a recreational function, these altered wave and current patterns may pose a threat to swimmers. This...

The influence of the Sand Engine on the Delfland coastal cell

The Sand Engine is an example of a feeder nourishment that is intended to nourish coastal systems. This strategy is based on placing sediments highly concentrated at one location, from which it is expected to spread alongshore over large distances on decadal timescales.<br/><br/>Here the morphological development of the Sand Engine mega feeder...

On the accuracy of automated shoreline detection derived from satellite imagery: A case study of the Sand Motor mega-scale nourishment

Measured trends and variability in shoreline position are used by coastal managers, scientists and engineers to understand and monitor coastal systems. This paper presents a new and generic method for automated shoreline detection from the largely unexplored collection of publicly available satellite imagery. The position of the obtained...

Aeolian sediment supply at a mega nourishment

Mega nourishments are intended to enhance growth and resilience of coastal dunes on medium to long time scales by stimulation of natural sediment transport processes. The growth and resilience of coastal dunes largely depends on the presence of a continuous supply of aeolian sediment. A recent example of a mega nourishment is the 21 Mm<sup>3<...

Evolution of alongshore bathymetric variability around a mega-scale beach nourishment

The presence of complex nearshore sand bar patterns (i.e. alongshore bathymetric variability) has an impact on local currents, affecting recreational safety and nearshore mixing processes. This study assesses the evolution of alongshore bathymetric variability along the Delfland coast in The Netherlands, over the first 5 years after construction...

impact of beach states on alongshore transport

Impact of spatial variability in the nearshore bathymetry on net sediment transport rates has been investigated for a selection of observed beach states at the Dutch coast. The beach states comprise a longshore bar trough and two transverse bar rip situations, which were present at the large scale Sand Motor nourishment at the Holland coast....

Field measurements on spatial variations in aeolian sediment availability at the Sand Motor mega nourishment

Spatial variations in aeolian sediment transport were measured at the Sand Motor mega nourishment in The Netherlands during a six week field campaign in the fall of 2014. A consistent significant increase in sediment transport in downwind direction (positive gradient) was measured over the intertidal beach area, indicating that the intertidal...

Semi-Automated Monitoring of a Mega-Scale Beach Nourishment Using High-Resolution TerraSAR-X Satellite Data

This paper presents a semi-automated approach to detecting coastal shoreline change with high spatial- and temporal-resolution using X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. The method was applied at the Sand Motor, a “mega-scale” beach nourishment project in the Netherlands. Natural processes, like waves, wind, and tides, gradually...

Tidal flow separation at protruding beach nourishments

In recent years, the application of large-scale beach nourishments has been discussed, with the Sand Motor in the Netherlands as the first real-world example. Such protruding beach nourishments have an impact on tidal currents, potentially leading to tidal flow separation and the generation of tidal eddies of<br/>length scales larger than the...

Development of sediment sorting near the large scale nourishment 'The Sand Motor'

The sediment composition of the sea bed is of relevance for various coastal properties such as bed forms, beach slopes and marine ecology. Furthermore it may significantly influence the morphological evolution of the coast. The sediment sorting processes at natural beaches are, however, difficult to distinguish since there can be a both a large...

Effect of Different Forcing Processes on the Longshore Sediment Transport at the Sand Motor, The Netherlands

The Sand Motor is a pilot project of a ‘mega-nourishment’ built in the Dutch coast in 2011. In order to understand which conditions reshape those mega-nourishments the influence of different types of forcing on the longshore sediment transport along the Sand Motor has been assessed in this paper using a process-based model. The use of numerical...

Morphological Development of a Mega-Nourishment: First Observations at the Sand Engine

Large (mega-scale) nourishments have been proposed as a promising alternative for traditional beach and shoreface nourishments, especially for locations with large structural erosion and sufficient sediment to dredge. This paper examines the initial bathymetric evolution of the Sand Engine, a mega-nourishment of 17 million m3 protruding almost 1...

Applicability of video-derived bathymetry estimates to nearshore current model predictions

In the framework of swimmer safety, coastal managers desire accurate nearshore current predictions obtained from numerical models. To this end, detailed and up-to-date bathymetry is a necessity. Remote sensing techniques for bathymetry estimation are a promising solution. The focus of this paper is to assess the performance of wavenumberbased...

Sustainable development of land reclamations and shorelines: Full-scale experiments as a driver for public-private innovations

With 80% of the world's population living in lowland urban areas by 2050, sea levels gradually rising and societal demands on the quality of living increasing, sustainable development of coastal zones becomes increasingly urgent as well as complex. Modern strategies for the design and implementation of measures for infrastructure development,...