The international dredging and maritime construction industry remains quite devoid of the use of mediation as a tool for Alternative Dispute Resolution. Mediation is outlined to broaden familiarity with mediation, increase confidence in the process, and inform about the benefits it can bring to the industry at large.

‘Water is more than a toilet, tap, dam, dyke or levee, it's an enabler.’

Dredging is essential for the maintenance and development of ports, harbours and waterways to allow for safe navigation, remediation and flood management. The process, which relocates large volumes of sediment, can be accompanied by the release of suspended sediments into the water column referred to as sediment plumes.

Contracts for dredging and offshore works are diverse. Moreover, increasing financial and/or managerial constraints require contracting parties to change the apportionment of commercial risk. Contractors and suppliers have to adapt to contracts that are chosen unilaterally by the owner. Turnkey and engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracts are becoming more common in the industry and bring their own benefits and challenges.

Can nature-based solutions be mainstream solutions? Nature-based solutions have obvious advantages but have not been embraced at wider scale. The barriers which can hinder wide-scale application and the topic’s relevance to the dredging community are discussed.

The Bacton Sandscaping scheme is a large-scale beach nourishment designed to protect the Bacton Gas Terminal from cliff and beach erosion while also reducing flood and erosion risk to the communities of Bacton and Walcott, buying the time they need for adaptation to coastal change.

This study examines which and, if possible, how much more ecosystem services are provided by the most recent nature inspired coastal protection project Prins Hendrik Zanddijk, in comparison with a traditional concrete and asphalt construction.

The nomination which won the IADC’s Safety Award 2019 was unveiled at IADC’s Annual General Meeting in New Delhi, India.

Situated in Muskegon, Michigan, the project provided numerous environmental benefits related to the remediation of legacy sediment contamination as well as restoration of the habitat into a more diverse wetland system.

Winning co-author Liesbeth De Keukelaere the Young Author Award, an article about the pilot test case organised at the Prins Hendrik Zanddijk project in Texel, The Netherlands, demonstrating drone technology for water quality monitoring.

Cables for offshore wind farms in the North Sea are buried for protection. A highly variable seabed topography influences the trenching process in sandy soils. A model has been developed to estimate the influence of sand dunes on the trenching process.

After 30 years at Witteveen+Bos, Henk Nieboer has moved on from the engineering and consultancy firm to focus his expertise into his current roles as director of EcoShape and founder of Adaelta.

Each year, IADC gives a safety award to one exceptional innovation which proves it is the best in its class. This year, 14 innovations addressing challenges faced within the dredging industry have been nominated.

CEDA’s Working Group on Beneficial Use aims to inspire sediment stakeholders and practitioners by describing the importance of sediments in the context of sustainable development and sharing a curated selection of case studies.

Following the Building with Nature concept, a pilot study was conducted introducing finegrained dredged sediments as a semicontinuous source of mud into a shallow tidal channel, naturally dispersing sediment to nearby mudflats and salt marshes.

Crews routinely perform vessel to vessel transfers, ensuring a project continues seamlessly. But the operation is not risk free. A roundtable of IADC members shared ideas on how to improve procedures to make crew transfers safer.

‘What will “sustainability” be in ten years? Our industry needs to be prepared for that.’ Luc Vandenbulcke kicked off 2019 in his new role as CEO of DEME Group. After 21 years working within the group, with 14 of those years starting up, leading and growing the group’s offshore subsidiary, he is now heading the company’s future as it navigates the evolving processes of sustainability.

The head of a dredge pump is an important performance parameter and a strongly fluctuating head may affect the operating stability of the pump unit. The IADC Young Author’s Award paper analyses unsteady characteristics of pump performance to improve control of the dredge pump.

In collaboration with the Natuurmonumenten (the Dutch Society for the Preservation of Nature), Boskalis constructed the Marker Wadden. The archipelago situated within the Markermeer enables processes which revitalise the natural ecology.

Popular instruments in the field, optical backscatter instruments (OBS) are used to measure suspended sediments. The sensitivity of OBS measurements in relation to grain size and the applicability of OBS measurements in mixed sediment environments is analysed.

Ecologist Patrick Meire has been researching the Scheldt for decades in the hope of implementing solutions which undo the damage caused by humans, industry and natural processes.

To connect Scandinavia with Germany, the world’s longest immersed tunnel will be built. The Fehmarnbelt will close a major gap in the European transport network while fostering the development of new nature and recreational landscapes.

Depending on its size and installed power, a Cutter Suction Dredger is capable of cutting a wide range of soil types. Although precise and relatively efficient, a CSD can spill significantly. The authors propose a preliminary model which describes spillage due to centrifugal advection.

For several decades, the preferred solution for isolating dredging pumps within a vessel has been double-walled pump housing. To bypass this housing type’s intrinsic problems, Damen formulated an alternative.

By viewing routine processes and situations through a continuous lens of safety, individuals can help make operational processes on water or land safer. Eight solutions nominated for IADC’s Safety Award demonstrate the benefit of this approach.

Externalities traditionally fall beyond the scope of contractors, leading to stakeholder value creation and corporate value creation being viewed as separate concepts. The time has come to internalise externalities as a force of corporate value creation.

Mark van Koningsveld’s quest for a sustainable dredging industry takes to the front of the classroom as he begins his new role as professor of Ports & Waterways at TU Delft.

A recurring situation observed during the course of a project: the same issues which arise are experienced differently by different parties. A commission was founded to determine the reason and if possible, propose a solution.

With five possible flow regimes to choose from for slurry transport, selecting just one can require consideration. Fortunately, one of these regimes has a simple criterion: a ratio of the particle diameter to the pipe diameter.

IADC’s Young Author Award winner François De Keuleneer and co-authors Joris de Vroom and Arjan Mol discuss the Workability Tool which ensures captains of specialised vessels can make informed decisions to dredge during favourable wave conditions.

A newly appointed Professor Emeritus at TU Delft and former project manager at the Port of Rotterdam Authority, Tiedo Vellinga discusses his role as a bridge between academia and practice and its impact on the direction of port development.

Safe navigation through ports and waterways is determined by the space available under a ship's keel, but a seabed of fluid mud can get in the way.

A one-dimensionalhorizontal modelling tool which accurately predicts the overflow of sediments and bed layer distribution inside the hopper of a Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger is introduced.

The International Association of Ports and Harbors’s Patrick Verhoeven discusses the major topics facing the world’s ports as they prepare for the future as well as ways ports can adapt to the ever-growing scale increase of ships.

A paradigm shift is being increasingly embraced within the dredging industry. The traditional engineering approach is becoming a holistic approach in which the ecosystem is leading and values for people, profit and planet are integrated in an interdisciplinary manner.

Dredging activities often result in the suspension of sediment into the water column in the vicinity of the activity. Sediment release to the aquatic environment and the effects of this release are often the prime environmental concern associated with dredging.