Newsletter – February 2020

Website: www.SedNet.org
Compiled by: Marjan Euser (marjan.euser@deltares.nl)
Subscription Service: SedNet Secretariat (marjan.euser@deltares.nl)
Disclaimer: SedNet is not responsible for faults due to incorrectness of info in this newsletter
Previous issues: www.sednet.org/newsletter

Contents:

  • Reminder: Workshop of the SedNet WG on Sediment Quality
  • Next meeting SedNet WG Sediments in Circular Economy: 15-16 April 2020, Glasgow, UK
  • 12th International SedNet Conference, Lille, France
  • Navigating a Changing Climate conference at COPEDEC
  • NaCC Website update and a call for newsletter articles
  • PIANC workshop “Opportunities and Barriers to Beneficial Use of Sediments”
  • IMMERSE Transnational Estuary Exchange Lab
  • NUREDRAIN filter technologies
  • Upcoming events

 

Click here for the pdf version of the newsletter.

Reminder: Workshop of the SedNet Working Group on Sediment Quality

elucidating The Role of Ecotoxicological Data in Sediment Quality and Dredged Material Assessment Frameworks

We would like to invite interested experts from academia, industry/business and government to join us in Rome on 10-11 March 2020, to discuss experiences, challenges and approaches regarding the use of biotesting and ecotoxicological data in the assessment of sediment and dredged material quality. In addition to the concentration of hazardous substances in sediments, their effects on the biological community is gaining attention in quality assessment. Effects can be addressed e.g. by direct biotesting of sediments and/or the use of ecotoxicologically based sediment quality criteria.  Among a variety of different approaches and related issues that come with their application in Europe, we will focus on 4 topics in this workshop. We would like to

  • review on how ecotoxicological testing is applied in sediment quality and dredged material assessment frameworks in different countries. Please share your experiences and problems with us. Let us discuss opportunities and challenges and whether there is a way – or indeed a need – for international harmonization of biotesting sediments.
  • reflect on sediment quality criteria and their efficiency to protect the environment and its living resources. We would especially like to look at the OSPAR EACs (Environmental Assessment Criteria) and threshold levels applied in the Mediterranean Sea in the context of risks from hazardous substances in the marine environment.
  • discuss possibilities and methods to back calculate EQSs for the WFD to produce sediment quality guidelines
  • shed a light on the applicability of passive sampling methodology to derive thresholds suitable for assessment purposes.

The workshop will be free of charge and will last from midday on March 10 to the evening of March 11.

The number of participants will be restricted to 25 people. If you are interested, please contact Susanne Heise (Susanne.heise@haw-hamburg.de).

Next meeting SedNet WG Sediments in Circular Economy:
15-16 April 2020, Glasgow, UK 

Following the success of the meeting WGCE3 in Bremen and Delfzijl, the SedNet Working Group “Sediments in Circular Economy” will meet again in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, with time for topic discussions and for field visits. The meeting is hosted by the University of Strathclyde.

As usual, participation is free but subject to prior registration with the SedNet Secretariat. Participants are expected to cover their travel and accommodation expenses.

The program is not yet final, but the following topics and visits are planned:

Day 1: 15 April 2020 (from 9:00 to 18:00 hrs)
Workshop: PFAS and TBT in sediment (maybe also a feature on sediment beneficial use un the Great Lakes, USA)
Site visit: Bowling pilot testing (SURICATES project) – a paper on this site was given at the conference of SedNet in 2019 in Dubrovnik.

Day 2: 16 April 2020 (from 9:00 to 18:00 hrs)
Workshop: Emerging compounds in sediment legislation
Also a feature on Mass stabilization of sediments
Group work for a paper on emerging contaminants
Site visit: Greenock (Kingston Basin) and return to Glasgow around 18:00

Join us for a memorable Scottish trip!

Please inform the SedNet Secretariat if you wish to participate to this event.

Travelling:
from Glasgow Airport there is a good bus-connection with the city centre. The airport bus (number 500) runs to and from the terminal and George Square every 10 minutes and takes 15 minutes (allow 30-40 minutes at peak times).  Buscompanies CityLink and Megabus both go from Glasgow Buchanan bus station to Edinburgh Airport, which has more options for European flights.

Hotel accommodation:
We advise you to book a room in Premier Inn (3*) Glasgow Centre (George Square) – which is nearest to the meeting venue. If you prefer a 4* hotel, the nearest is probably the Millennium Hotel on George Square.  Likewise, the Queen Street Travelodge is 2* and nearby.

12th International SedNet Conference, Lille, France

The next SedNet conference will take place in Lille in 2021. Both the exact date and location are still to be decided. We expect to have more news before summer. Keep an eye on the conference webpage.

Navigating a Changing Climate conference at COPEDEC

On 19 and 20 November 2020 Navigating a Changing Climate initiative organises a conference in The Philippines, hosted by The Philippine Ports Authority.

The Navigating a Changing Climate’s Action Plan recognises the important role of sediment in many places:

  • Mitigation, notably Blue Carbon – the role of sediments in the support and management of coastal habitats as important carbon sinks; carbon offsetting opportunities
  • How dynamic natural systems, including sediments, might be affected by climate change with potential consequences and challenges for navigation efficiency and safety; related monitoring and adaptive management responses
  • Adaptation and resilience – the role of sediments in sustaining, enhancing or creating habitats that capitalise on natural resilience or help strengthen resilience against the effects of climate change; Working with Nature

The SedNet community might therefore be interested in submitting abstracts against any of the following conference themes:

  • Moving towards ‘net zero’ emissions of greenhouse gases from port infrastructure including the port estate
  • Intermodality and system-level climate change resilience
  • Monitoring and adaptive management for responding to change
  • Climate change adaptation, including theory and practice, methodologies and case studies
  • Optimising operational resilience, including the role of inspection and maintenance
  • Flexible and adaptive infrastructure design; Nature-based solutions to improve navigation infrastructure resilience

See for details NaCC website. Deadline for submitting abstracts is 21 February 2020.
 

NaCC Website update and a call for newsletter articles

SedNet is supporter organisation of Navigating a Changing Climate. NaCC informed us that its Climate website has been updated to include a more obvious keyword-based search facility that enables you to identify items of particular relevance from the newsfeed and other pages on the site. For example, you may be interested in sector-specific articles on ‘adaptation’ or ‘decarbonisation’ or you may specifically want to understand what ‘guidance’ exists.  Please take a look at the site, including the search feature, and let us have any feedback!  It would also be useful to hear from you what other information you would like to see on the website.

PIANC workshop “Opportunities and Barriers to Beneficial Use of Sediments”

On 30 January 2020, through the Working Group 214 on Beneficial Sediment Use (BU) of PIANC, a workshop was organized in which 35 participants focused on the opportunities and barriers to beneficial use with focus on North Europe. Participants included ports, dredging industry, academics and regulators, who shared their perspectives from the dredging, regulatory, technology, and program communities in dedicated panels. This workshop follows a similar event organized in October in Brisbane dedicated to Australia. A follow-up workshop will likely be organized in Manila aside to the PIANC Copedec 2020 conference, with emphasis to South-East Asia. These regional governance perspectives will be an integral part of the final WG214 2021 report.

Annually, billions of cubic meters of material are dredged globally to maintain ship movement for commerce and recreation. Navigational maintenance is integral to the world economy, without which the transport of cargo, large cruise ships, and pleasure craft could not function. With dredging comes a need to manage dredged material. Today, many constraints pose challenges to the beneficial use of dredged material due to concerns over impacts to surface waters, displacement of aquatic habitat, or the release of contaminants into the environment. These growing constraints and societal needs motivate the development of innovative and sustainable alternatives, including identifying beneficial uses for sediment to increase value regarding economic, social, and environmental benefits. Yet, sediment is a valuable, often scare, resource in the context of sustainable development and climate adaptation. Beneficial use is naturally aligned with sustainability, life-cycle analyses, and circular-economy frameworks. Shoreline environments benefit from a system-wide evaluation of sediment dredging and dredged-sediment applications, where dredged sediment is viewed not as waste and instead is valued resource for raw material to maintain hydrological, ecological, and economic conditions. Sediments can be beneficially used to e.g. counteract coastal erosion, provide locally produced building material to raise dikes, re-establish wetlands or natural habitats, and reclaim land.

The objective of WG214 is to provide technical information and guidance regarding the state of the practice for sediment use as a beneficial resource, drawing from existing approaches and best practices. WG214 is developing a report that will consider and evaluate the following: Concepts of sediment use and existing scientific knowledge related to different uses; sediment contamination and how contamination can constrain sediment reuse alternatives; and cost-benefit and ecosystem-services frameworks to understand how the value of different reuse options can be quantified, and compare different beneficial use alternatives and compare those alternatives to the status quo. The report will give an overview of global sediment beneficial use practices, technologies, regulations, and limitations. Case studies will be presented to illustrate recent successes and challenges associated with the beneficial use of dredged material. Beneficial use must be framed in the context of LC/LP and OSPAR legislations, and the report will link to relevant reports published by PIANC, the Central and Western Dredging Associations (CEDA and WEDA), the International Association of Dredging Contractors (IADC), and the European Sediment Network (SedNet), among others.

For further information please contact Luca Sittoni. 


IMMERSE Transnational Estuary Exchange Lab

The project IMMERSE aims to accelerate the implementation of large-scale measures that address multiple estuary management challenges, while increasing their cost-efficiency and enhancing stakeholder commitment. More information is available on the project website.

In order to advance development and transfer of solutions across estuaries in the North Sea Region, IMMERSE is organizing its second Transnational Estuary Exchange Lab on 1 – 2 April, 2020 in Groningen, the Netherlands. The interactive workshop is designed to support the project’s objective of improving the quality of estuary management measures by drawing from transnational knowledge and experiences. It is the second in a series of region-wide events organized by the IMMERSE project (information and outcomes from the 1st TEEL, held in June 2019, is available here).

The upcoming Transnational Estuary Exchange Lab (TEEL) will focus on issues relevant to the nearby Eems estuary and across the North Sea region, with sessions on sediment management, silt & ecology, and governance. Please see the draft programme attached or online here.

At the Exchange Lab, IMMERSE partners, North Sea Region estuary managers and relevant stakeholders will explore solutions and share experiences through a variety of discussion formats. I invite you or your relevant colleagues to participate. More information, including registration and travel information, is available on the event page.

See also the North Sea Region Estuary Managers LinkedIn Group – which is a dedicated group for the estuary managers community working in the North Sea Region –  led from the perspective of the IMMERSE project but with the aim of consolidating all kinds of relevant information and initiatives. You are most welcome to join the group!


NUREDRAIN filter technologies

The NUREDRAIN project is developing and piloting filter technologies and filter materials which can remove and/or trap nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) before they reach receiving agricultural waters and cause eutrophication. Below is a link to their newsletter, which will update you on recent developments and the results of their latest filter system tests:  https://conta.cc/370jqfu

The Sullied Sediments  project has a reciprocal agreement with the NUREDRAIN project to share respective successes and achievements. Our NUREDRAIN colleagues have provided input on various aspects of our project, including testing the efficacy of our new phosphate ‘dipsticks’ in the field.

Upcoming events

10-11 March 2020: workshop SedNet Working Group Sediment Quality elucidating the role of ecotoxicological data in sediment quality and dredged material assessment frameworks. Workshop venue: Ispra, Rome, Italy. See article in this newsletter.

1-2 April 2020: IMMERSE Transnational Estuary Exchange Lab, “Sediment Management in Estuaries” Groningen, the Netherlands.
This interactive workshop is designed to support the project’s objective of improving the quality of estuary management measures by drawing from transnational knowledge and experiences. More info

15-16 April 2020: Meeting of the SedNet Working Group “Sediments in Circular Economy” at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, UK. Also two field visits. Click here for the preliminary programme.
Please inform the SedNet Secretariat if you are interested to attend.

 14-18 June 2020: ContaSed2020, University of Bern, Switzerland.
2nd International Conference on Contaminated Sediments. ContaSed2020 will focus on organic and inorganic sediment contaminant classes including microplastics, emerging contaminants, heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants.
Deadline for abstract submission is 15 January 2020.
More info at the conference website.

25-26 June 2020: RIVER BASINS 2020 Conference, at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary.
Conference theme: Solids in River Basins – Solids and particle bound pollutants, with focus on Modelling, Monitoring and Management. More info at the conference website.

7-10 July 2020: RIVER FLOW 2020, Delft, The Netherlands.
10th Conference on Fluvial Hydraulics under the auspices of IAHR, with masterclasses on the 6th of July. The conference themes include: sediment transport, sediment mining, climate adaptation, morphodynamics, ecosystem services etc.
Find updates or subscribe to the newsletter at http://www.riverflow2020.nl.

7-10 July 2020: 7th International Symposium on Sediment Management (I2SM), Lille, France.
The symposium is organised by IMT Lille Douai.
The deadline for abstract submission has been extended to 15 March 2020.
Selected papers will be published in international peer reviewed journals. Poster presentations are also encouraged, since papers accompanying a poster will be equally considered for publication.
Further info about the symposium (incl. the template for abstracts) can be found on http://asims.fr/sample-page/.

7-11 September 2020: ECSA conference in Hull, UK.  The conference will be dealing mostly with the management of estuaries, see www.estuarinecoastalconference.com. Contributions to this conference may later on be submitted to Special Issues in Ocean & Coastal Management and Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.
The two Special Sessions below include the sediment-topic and are co-organized by the two German Federal Agencies BAW and BfG and deal with impact assessments (0051) and sediment management (0055) in estuaries:

(0051) Studying the impact of human interventions on estuarine hydrodynamics and sediment transport in environmental impact assessments
(0055) Sediment management in estuaries – from minimizing ecological impacts to possible win-win situations
You can submit your abstract until 27 March 2020.

19-20 November 2020: Navigating a Changing Climate conference at COPEDEC in The Philippines, hosted by The Philippine Ports Authority.
See for details the SedNet eNewsletter of February 2020 and the NaCC website. Deadline for submitting abstracts is 21 February 2020.

2021

Spring 2021: 12th International SedNet Conference, Lille, France
“Sediment Challenges and Opportunities with Climate Change, and Sustainable Development Goals”
Conference date and Call for abstracts will be announced in spring 2020 at the conference webpage.

 

 

Disseminated by SedNet secretariat  – email  marjan.euser@deltares.nl