Virtual workshops on November 13 and 20, 2019

The US EPA Office of Research and Development / Office of Science Policy (ORD/OSP) in cooperation with the Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM) is sponsoring a 4-part virtual workshop series to address current challenges at contaminated sediment sites. The aim of the virtual workshop is to provide interactive discussions between subject matter expert panelists and workshop participants. Consequently, each virtual session will feature brief topic introductions by panelists followed by facilitated panelist/participant discussions which will include opportunities for questions and answers, brainstorming, identification of concerns and research needs, and quick spot surveys. Additional time for Q&A has been added to each session. The first two sessions are available in the seminar archives at https://clu-in.org/live/archive/. For more information and to register for the remaining two sessions, see https://clu-in.org/live.

Mid September 2019 SedNet became official member of the Strategic Coordination Group (SCG) of the Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and Floods Directive (FD).

Through its SCG membership SedNet gets optimal opportunities to raise attention for sediment management in support of European water policy implementation. This is needed as SedNet stated in its 2017 policy brief that European water policy objectives will only be achieved by also integrating sediment in River Basin Management Planning.

For more info on the SCG-CIS-WFD-FD see https://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/objectives/implementation_en.htm

The next meeting of the SedNet Working Group Sediments in Circular Economy  (WG CE3) will be held on October 23-24th, 2019, in and near Bremen, Germany. The preliminary agenda can be found here.

If you wish to attend then please send an email to the SedNet Secretariat.

This recenly published  Methodological Guide  presents how dredged sediments can be beneficially used in road engineering with a view to sustainable development and to the protection of the environment and of populations. This is the result of research carried out by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DGCE) at the School of Mines of Douai for more than ten years on the theme of using dredged sediments. It is coherent with French regulations and the methodological framework (ADEME, 2010; SETRA, 2011) that prevailed at the time of the work. The proposed methodology was developed by the Ecole des Mines de Douai as part of France’s SEDIMATERIAUX project and may be reviewed in the light of feedback received at the French national or European level.

SedNet promotes since 2004 beneficial uses of dredged sediments, in a perspective of sustainable development and of circular economy. Road engineering is one of these beneficial uses, as it reduces both waste and mineral extraction.

This guide is not intended for use of sediments abstracted from a river system. It is only intended for harbour and canal dredgings, where restitution to river systems is usually not possible – at least economically.

Otherwise, it should be first considered to reintroduce them where the river system may need them, before considering any engineering use.

End of April / early May the abstracts and presentations given at the conference will be uploaded on the website:

https://sednet.org/events/sednet-conference-2019/

Please tell us if you are willing to review papers for a Special (SedNet) Issue of the Journal of Soils and Sediments “Sediments as a dynamic natural resource – from catchment to open sea”. See for details about the Special Issue the Call for papers.

Authors of abstracts that have been selected for oral or poster presentation at the 11th International SedNet Conference, 3-5 April 2019, Dubrovnik, Croatia, are invited to submit an extended paper for a Special Issue of the Journal of Soils and Sediments “Sediments as a dynamic natural resource – from catchment to open sea”. This Special Issue is anticipated to be published in 2020.
Each author can submit one manuscript for publication. Please note that no more than one manuscript per participant will be considered.

Manuscripts should be prepared in the strict format of the Journal of Soils and Sediments. Recommended number of pages is 6 to 8. The instructions for authors can be found at:
https://www.springer.com/environment/soil+science/journal/11368

Please note that the Special Issue “Sediments as a dynamic natural resource – from catchment to open sea” is not yet listed on the JSS-website. We will inform you as soon as the JSS-website has been updated.
Manuscripts should be submitted by June 2nd, 2019.

Click here if you are interested in reviewing papers that will be submitted for the Special Issue.

The Circular Economy Stakeholder Conference (6-7 March 2019 in Brussels) is the main gathering of the European circular economy community. The 2019 edition, organised in Brussels on the initiative of the Commission and the European Economic and Social Committee, will take stock of the Circular Economy Action Plan’s achievements, it will set the ground for new horizons in the circular economy and give participants the opportunity to grow their network of circular partners.

The conference will explore the action plan’s implementation as a successful framework for the transition, while discussing policies to capitalise on the current global momentum. It will also widen the discussion to consider the circular economy as an enabler to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

Registration for this conference closes on 31 January.

The US National Reservoir Sustainability and Sedimentation Team (NRSST) has the opinion that we need to take reservoir sedimentation seriously and we should be implementing solutions more widely than we do at present.  NRSST has organized several webinars this year, the webinars are available for viewing on a webpage, hosted by the University of Colorado Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences:

https://cires.colorado.edu/news/announcing-reservoir-sedimentation-management-webinar-series

These are excellent, up-to-date summaries of issues in managing sediment in reservoirs. One of the seminars concerns permitting of sediment management actions, which is US-centric, but the others are more universally applicable.

The Conference ‘Marine sands as a precious resource’ will be held in the Museum of Natural Sciences, Brussels

To frame long-term resource use, keynote speaker Prof. dr. Ester van der Voet, Industrial Ecologist at Leiden University, and member of the UNEP Resource Panel, will speak about methodology development, such as material flow analysis, natural resource accounting, and sustainability indicator development. Applications include bio-based economy and circular economy.

Interactive demonstrations will be held on the newly developed tools: volumetric 3D pixel (‘voxel’) models, numerical impact models accounting for geological boundary conditions, a geological data portal and the resource decision support module. Side events include a Virtual Reality experience, and a discussion on data fusion in a European context. Free participation, but register before May 26. E-mail to: vvanlancker@naturalsciences.be. Project info: https://odnature.naturalsciences.be/tiles/

Flyer with conference topics: https://bit.ly/2HxUwag