Strategies and Tools for Environment-friendly Shore Nourishments as Climate Change Impact Low-Regret Measures
| Direction | Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Nils Goseberg |
|---|---|
| Team | Johanna Wolbring |
| Dr.-Ing. David Schürenkamp | |
| Funding | Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) |
| Duration | 01.10.2016 - 30.09.2019 |
| Project partners | Forschungszentrum Küste (FZK) |
| Ludwig-Franzius-Institute for Hydraulic, Estuarine and Coastal Engineering (LuFI) | |
| Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management (IWW), RWTH Aachen University | |
| Institute for Environmental Research (IUF) | |
| Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) |
Shore nourishments are regarded as effective measures to adapt to climate change on sandy coastlines. They have been applied to protect sandy coasts against storm-induced and structural erosion around the world as well as in Germany on a routinely basis for decades. Shore nourishments are considered to be more eco-friendly and in greater compliance with the forcing processes than hard coastal protection measures, especially considering the projected sediment deficits resulting from sea level rise.
State-of-the-art coastal protection strategies require interdisciplinary planning in the context of an integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) and an eco-system approach to management (EAM). The BMBF-funded joint research project STENCIL aims at making a first step towards the development of strategies and tools for establishing an ICZM and EAM for shore nourishments.
The project is subdivided into six working areas (WA). Integrating the results of the WAs into a consistent strategy for shore nourishments will be done in WA 1 by all contributing partners (Fig. 1). The remaining five WAs concentrate on the development of prediction tools and methods for the individual disciplines. This entails modelling of coastal hydrodynamic processes (WA 2), assessment of morphological processes on the meso-scale (WA 3) as well as the nearshore sediment transport under storm surge conditions (WA 4), assessment of hydrotoxicological impacts of sand nourishment project (WA 5) and monitoring of sedimentary behaviour of benthic habitats at the extraction and nourishment site (WA 6).
Reliable forecasts of storm surges, local wave conditions, current patterns and resulting water levels lead to increased efficiency and project life time of shore nourishments. The Leichtweiß-Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources (LWI) is predominantly concerned with WA 2, which entails the hydrodynamic modelling of boundary conditions and their interdependencies with sand nourishments.
The working area is further structured into work packages (WP):
WA 2 focuses on timely identification of potential erosion hot spots on a regional scale considering long-term processes as well as episodic storm-surge events. Thereby it will contribute to a strategy towards an ICZM and EAM for shore nourishments.
The project "STENCIL - Strategies and Tools for Environment-friendly Shore Nourishments as Climate Change Impact Low-Regret Measures" is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
The project is being conducted in cooperation with four research institutes, the Ludwig-Franzius-Institute for Hydraulic, Estuarine and Coastal Engineering (LuFI), the Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management, RWTH Aachen University (IWW), the Institute for Environmental Research (IUF) as well as the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). It is coordinated by Forschungszentrum Küste (FZK).