For a long time, SedNet has aimed to compile all relevant experiences in sediment management into a comprehensive guidance document. Additionally, SedNet seeks to engage with and educate students and other interested individuals about sediment management. This approach will help ensure our work is better understood and appreciated.
To achieve this SedNet organized the first workshop/meeting of the SedNet Working Group “Education-Science-Policy Interfacing & Sediment Management Concepts” (WG ESPI-SMC) on Wednesday 20th and Thursday 21st of November 2019 in Madrid. During the workshop experiences of setting up sediment management concepts of the Rhine, Elbe and Scheldt were exchanged. Also the lessons learned of making a sediment guidance document made in the USA in 2005 were presented. A rough plan of action to write out a SedNet guidance document about how to set up sediment management concepts was made. This guidance document will be developed by the WG ESPI-SMC in 2020-2021 and will be supplementary to the guidance document that the European Commission (ECOSTAT) is developing in the same period.
Additionally, initial ideas were gathered to create a “Sediment (serious) game.” A draft of this game will be developed and tested in 2020 by the WG ESPI-SMC. We hope to debut the game at one of the upcoming SedNet conferences. If successful, it would be beneficial to create a professional online version in multiple languages to teach secondary school and university students the principles of good sediment management. Furthermore, the WG ESPI-SMC aims to develop an educational learning package. They also intend to create communication tools, such as films, to showcase best practices in sediment management.
Want to follow the work of the WG ESPI-SMC? Want to help by mail or at one of the next workshops? Please, let us know. Contact: SedNet secretariat!
For the full report of the kick-off meeting of WG ESPI-SMC click here.
You can request a copy of the annexes to the meeting report from the SedNet Secretariat.
Workgroup Meeting Hamburg 2024
Four new sediment stories (Sandy’s Adventures) for toddlers and children in primary school were brainstormed and created during the workshop of the WG ESPI-SMC. In the coming months, the text of the stories will be finalized, and illustrations will be created. The stories will be translated into at least English, German, Dutch, and Portuguese. We are looking for native speakers of other languages to translate them into their own language! Please let the SedNet Secretariat know if you would like to help with this.
We will develop a (serious) “Sediment Game” aimed at high school and university students as well as adults. It will be a cooperative team game with the goal of solving different sediment challenges in a fictional river basin. In the coming months, we will further develop this game. If you would like to help with formulating sediment cases (defining the problem/challenge, outlining possible solutions, etc.), or if you would like to volunteer to “try out” the game once it is developed, please let us know!
We plan to create a website with various sediment education and communication materials. If you have such materials, even if they are only in your own native language, please send them to us or provide us with a link where we can find them. This way, we can share good examples with everyone on our website!
View the workgroup presentation here.
