Sense of safety in Dutch river landscapes

In July 2021, heavy floods hit the Dutch province Limburg after days of rainfall in south-west Germany, the Ardennes and southern Limburg. Rivers like the Geul, the Roer and the Maas couldn’t discharge the large amounts of water. Many parts of these regions flooded, and approximately 50.000 people have been evacuated from their homes (Task Force...

Improvement of the Flood Early Warning System for Valkenburg along the Geul River

The combination of climate change and increased urbanization has resulted in cities with no historic flooding experience suddenly vulnerable to extreme flood events. Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of rainfalls, whereas urbanization decreases the total porous surface area, resulting in pluvial (rainwater) flooding. One such...

Flooding problems in the catchment area of the River Geul: The impact of measures on the consequences of extreme future flooding

The flooding of the River Geul in July 2021 was an eyeopener for the society, the government and many others involved. Besides the major structural damage as a consequence of the flooding, the emotional damage was and still is massive. Therefore, the need for measures to reduce the impact of these extreme events is bigger than ever. Many people...

Assessing and redesigning Valkenburg’s flood risk management system: A multidisciplinary project

The geographical features in the Southern part of Limburg forces precipitation from upstream located areas to flow through a bottleneck, which is exactly located at the city centre of Valkenburg. This makes increasing the safety level more complicated than in other areas. The safety level of Valkenburg has a lower standard in comparison to the...

Geul River flooding reproduced with a Delft3D depth-averaged model

Identification of the members of the Maastricht Formation in Valkenburg, the Netherlands

In the city of Valkenburg a new underground parking garage is being built next to the Hema. For this project four boreholes were drilled in the Maastrichtian limestone. These cores were described and tested at the laboratory of the department of Geoscience and Engineering of Delft University of Technology to obtain the geotechnical properties of...

Optiemalisatiemodel gebiedsontwikkeling locatie Valkenburg

An urban area development can be a long and on?going process. Reasons for this are for example de size of the project, the amount of involved parties, the interest (financially) and the opportunities. To keep the process going a couple of tools can be used. An important tool is meeting and negotiating. Just putting conflicting parties’ together...

Assessment of the state of conservation of a Middle Neolithic flint mine in Maastricht limestone

Upper Cretaceous Maastricht limestone ("mergel") outcrops in the provinces of Dutch and Belgian Limburg. The Upper Cretaceous in the Netherlands consists of the geological Maastricht Formation and the upper part of the Gulpen Formation. Limestones from the Maastricht Formation represent one of the few native Dutch natural stones used for...