European marine sand and gravel resources: evaluation and environmental impact of extraction

Background and objectives

The EUMARSAND is an EU-project, consortium of 9 universities and institutes, overall project leader Dr A. Uriarte, (AZTI) Santander, Spain. The strategic objective of the project EUMARSAND is to investigate and train to high level young researchers in the complex issues associated with the marine aggregate exploitation. These issues are addressed through the application of a wide range of scientific approaches (geological, sedimentological, physical, ecological and engineering -based). The integration of these approaches will improve significantly both resource management and our knowledge on the impacts of aggregate extraction, on the state and dynamics of the inner shelf and coastal environments.

Within this research training network project, the department WEM (University of Twente) is especially involved in:

• Modelling of the physical and ecological impacts of offshore sand and gravel mining on sandbanks, by numerical modelling and stability analysis.
• Improvement in the understanding of ‘bed regeneration’ processes which can occur on sandbanks, after extraction.

Publications

S.J.M.H. Hulscher, C. van der Kleij and T. Louters. Ecological and morphological effects due to an airport island in the North Sea: comparing uncertain information. In (Ed.), Proceedings third IAHR Symposium on River, Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics 2003, pp 875-886, 2003

Idier, D. and D. Astruc. Short-term dynamics of a Dover Strait tidal sandwave covered by megaripples. In (Ed.), Proceedings third IAHR Symposium on River, Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics. Barcelona, Spain, pp 445-455, 2003.

Idier, Astruc and Hulscher, Influence of the bed roughness on the generation of megaripples and dunes, ICCE2004, Lisbon, sept. 2004.

M.A.F. Knaapen, H. Holzhauer, S.J.M.H. Hulscher , M.J. Baptist, M.B. de Vries, M. van Ledden. On the modelling of biological effects on morphology in estuaries and seas. In (Ed.), Proceedings third IAHR Symposium on River, Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics 2003, pp 773-783, 2003.

Idier, Note on grain size dependency in morphodynamic modelling, or the importance of the critical bed shear stress, CE&M research report, 2003.

Paarlberg, A. The significane of biological activity for morphology and sand-mud distributions. MSc. thesis, University of Twente. WL|Delft Hydraulics report Z2837. 2003.