The monitoring programme for the Maasvlakte 2

Abstract

Maasvlakte 2 (MV2) is the Port of Rotterdam Authority’s port extension project west of the existing Maasvlakte. The project area is 2,000 hectare gross of which 1,000 hectare is the net infrastructure. The first phase of the project is scheduled to be finished in mid-2013. Before operations for the project could begin, a stringent Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was conducted to meet permitting requirements. This article focusses on the monitoring aspects and the effort the Port of Rotterdam (POR) has put into complying with the conditions of the excavation permit. The article will demonstrate that the POR went beyond what was required to satisfy what they considered their duty and rather tried to understand what was going on in the North Sea during dredging. To this end, they went beyond the responsibility of monitoring for the sake of the permit, but rather initiated more scientific research as gaps of knowledge manifested themselves. In this article the following subjects are examined: The monitoring requirements and set-up in general, the baseline measurement for juvenile fish (2007), the seabed composition, sieve analysis and the silt component therein, and the mismatch between hatching of cockles and the algae bloom (2009-2011). Other aspects of the monitoring programme will be presented in subsequent articles.