Bifurcations distribute water, sediment and contaminants over distributaries in deltas. The aim of this study is to develop and test a bifurcation stability model for time-scales of 10¹-10³yr, in which water and sediment is distributed depending on both local (e.g., meandering, bifurcation planform) and regional controls (e.g., climate, base-level). Bifurcations are key elements in delta evolution on time-scales of 10²-10³yr and river flooding mitigation on time-scales of 10¹-10²yr. read more

Nearshore sandbars (alongshore ridges of sand in 2 - 10 m water depth typical of microtidal, storm-dominated coasts) serve as a natural protection for beaches by causing waves to break away from the shoreline. Cross-shore sandbar behavior is governed by the feedback between nonlinear hydrodynamics, sediment transport and the sandbar itself. Predictions of sandbar behavior with sophisticated numerical models are inherently uncertain because of a sensitive dependence on initial conditions and model inadequacies. This project aims to quantify these uncertainties and to determine its relevant source by means of embedding the traditional single-forecasts in a probabilistic (ensemble) environment and ensemble data-assimilation techniques. read more

The objective of this project is to understand the short- to long-term behavior of bar and rip patterns on the beach. This is done by monthly surveying the beach morphology, describing and doing morphometric analysis of the intertidal bar morphology using the ARGUS video images of Noordwijk and Egmond aan Zee in the Netherlands. read more

An integrated infrastructure initiative executed by a consortium of 20 internationally renowned European research institutes, universities, and enterprises. HYDRALAB III is an extension of HYDRALAB II, in which 15 partners were working closely together with the objective of optimising the important position of laboratory experiments in our fields. HYDRALAB III will intensify this by a coordinated program of transnational access, joint research activities and networking activities, destined to improve, refine and harmonise the use of the available high-quality facilities and measuring methods in our fields. read more

The Berau delta and barrier reef system, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, represents a complex coastal system with a variety of coastal landforms. This project focuses on studying the conditions under which the estuary acts as either a trap or a conduit of sediment. Given the river discharge and sediment supply from the Berau drainage basin, the actual flow and sediment transport through the tidal river, the estuary and the coastal shelf towards the coral reefs can be estimated. read more