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Reuse of dredged material as a way to tackle societal challenges

  • SEDIMENTS, SEC 5 • SEDIMENT MANAGEMENT • DISCUSSION ARTICLE
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Abstract

Sediment is a natural resource that provides the foundation for living, working and building in lowland delta areas. A sustainable society, therefore, reuses dredged material as a valuable resource. Such reuse matches perfectly to the philosophy of a circular economy. However, it is not yet a common practice. Why is this, what are the bottlenecks and how do we overcome them? Here, we use the Netherlands as an example to illustrate possible solutions to these questions, although we believe that our messages and recommendations can be applied generically.

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Notes

  1. See e.g. http://www.ruimtevoorderivier.nl/meta-navigatie/english/

  2. See e.g. http://www.dezandmotor.nl/en-GB/

  3. Note: the Dutch word for dredged material is ‘bagger’. In every day, public language ‘bagger’ is often used to indicate something which is very bad or having a very low quality.

  4. See www.sednet.org

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Deltares, PO Box 85467, 3508, AL,, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Jos Brils

  2. Rijkswaterstaat, PO Box 20000, 3502, LA,, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Pieter de Boer

  3. Deltares, PO Box 177, 2600, MH,, Delft, The Netherlands

    Jan Mulder

  4. Water Engineering and Management, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500, AE,, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Jan Mulder

  5. Rijkswaterstaat, PO Box 17, 8200, AA,, Lelystad, The Netherlands

    Elmert de Boer

Authors
  1. Jos Brils
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  2. Pieter de Boer
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  3. Jan Mulder
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  4. Elmert de Boer
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Correspondence to Jos Brils.

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Brils, J., de Boer, P., Mulder, J. et al. Reuse of dredged material as a way to tackle societal challenges. J Soils Sediments 14, 1638–1641 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-014-0918-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-014-0918-0

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