Introduction
The overall objective of the Sandpit project is to develop reliable prediction techniques and guidelines to better understand, simulate and predict the morphological behaviour of large-scale sand mining pits/areas and the associated sand transport processes at the middle and lower (offshore) shoreface and also in the surrounding coastal zone.
Study area
The Sandpit study area is 3 km wide and 20 km long and is located near the coast of Noordwijk aan Zee along the Central Dutch Coast, which is a 120 km long inlet free, wave dominated stretch of coast, consisting of sandy beaches and multiple barred nearshore zones.
Tidal sand banks forms large regular patterns on the bed of the North Sea. The crests' spacing is 5-10 km. The height of the sand banks can reach up to 20 m, which is very high compared to the water depth.
Methods
Field measurements of tide, wind and density driven currents will be carried out in fall of 2002 using a ship-based ADCP along three cross-shore transects in the Sandpit study area. Measurements of bed forms will also be done along these transects using a multi-beam echo sounder and a side scan sonar. Sediment characteristics will be determined along the main Noordwijk transect using a Hamon grab (every 500 m) and a box corer (every 1 km).
Field measurements of hydrodynamics and sediment transport will be carried out during two large measurement campaigns, i.e. Sandpit 1 and 2. The first campaign (Sandpit 1) will be held in spring of 2003 at about 2 km from the shore at -10 m NAP. The second campaign will be held in fall of 2003 at about 10 km from the shore at -18 m NAP. Instruments will be deployed with the Mitra, a large research vessel of Rijkswaterstaat.
Instrument carriers deployed during the Sandpit 1 and 2 campaigns include the HSM tripod, HYDRO tripod and Bedload Sampler of the University of Utrecht (Netherlands), ADP tripod of HR Wallingford (UK) and the UCAEN tripod of the University of Caen (France). Instruments mounted in these carriers include a 5F-ASTM, ABS's, OBS's, EMF's, ADP's, Altimeters, Ripple Profilers, Rotary Side Scan Sonars, etc.
Downloads
Pictures
Please contact Bart Grasmeijer for more info on this project.
More information can be found on the Sandpit website.