Research on river dynamics from geological to operational time scales

NCR Days 2005 Book of Abstracts

The Netherlands Centre of River studies (NCR) successfully organised the NCR days for the 7th consecutive year in a row. During the NCR-days mainly young scientists presented their ongoing research. This led to lively discussions amongst the researchers themselves and persons responsible in river management in The Netherlands. This year the conference was located at the ARA Hotel in Zwijndrecht on the bank of one of the Rhine branches, the “Oude Maas”.

Two key note speakers, Henk Weerts from TNO and and Wilfried ten Brinke from RWS-RIZA, kicked off these NCR-days by presenting an overview of the theme River Dynamics from Geological to Operational Time Scales. Henk Weerts illustrated that knowledge of water and sediment transport in river systems in the geological past is very important for functions in the subsurface in the Netherlands, such as the production of water, sand, gravel and clay or the construction of infrastructure on unstable subsiding ground. The reprocesses determine the distribution and the properties of the fluvial deposits in the subsurface. Wilfried ten Brinke showed that knowledge of water and sediment transport in today’s river systems is very important for flood safety and water transport. In natural river systems sediment transport consists of relative longer periods of relatively slow, low volume and small particle transport interchanged with regular high discharge and irregular floods and branching being the periods where most of the larger size sediments are transported. In engineered river systems the sediment transport process has been altered severely: coarse sediments are captured upstream behind dams, huge quantities of sand and gravel are taken out of the river system as a resource for construction materials. Only suspended load fractions reach the sea nowadays.

With these inspiring notions the conference started. The programme consisted of 42 selected presentations, 15 interesting contributions in the form of oral presentations falling under the three themes Sedimentation and Morphology, Water Quantity and Quality and River Basin Management and 27 poster presentations. All presenters were invited to submit a short paper on their presentation for publication in the proceedings of the NCR-days 2005. The papers were reviewed by the NCR Programming Committee and Henk Weerts. This has resulted in 34 accepted papers in this NCR-publication, grouped into the sections: Sediments and Morphology (13), Water Quantity and Quality (10) and River Basin Management (11). The proceedings were finalised at TNO by Henk Weerts with the appreciated help of Ada van Schaik and Anja Livestro. At the NCR-days two lively workshops took place respectively on downstream river systems and the reconstruction works in the river Maas. In these workshops water policy issues and technical problems were presented by people from the field and discussed with all participants in order to pinpoint topics for a research agenda for the future. We are convinced that some of the topics will re-appear in the future NCR-days. Many of the issues raised were illustrated during the field trip on Saturday: river bank sedimentation in a nature reserve at the Rhoonse Grienden along the “Oude Maas” and a sand production pit of Boskalis at Zevenhuizerplas. Pictures of the field trip included in this volume give an impression of the visited sites.

We would like to thank Hans Hooghart of TNO, Jolien Mans of the NCR secretariat and Tine Verheij of Conference agency Routine for their work in organising the NCR-days 2005. They all have contributed to the success of the meeting, especially concerning the logistics. The continued financial support by NWO/ALW is gratefully acknowledged.

Finally, we are looking backat a very inspiring conference with many lively discussions and a joyful fieldtrip. We are confident that like the previous years, the network of mainly young researchers in river sciences has strengthened through the participation in the NCR-days offering them the opportunity for communication with fellow scientists and staff of water institutes in the Netherlands.

Henk Weerts, Ipo Ritsema and Ad van Os

Authors

H.J.T. Weerts, I.L. Ritsema, A.G. van Os

ID

29-2005

Publication Date

02/10/2005