INNOVATIVE MATERIALS 2 2020
Durable dike cladding made of sludge
Water board Scheldestromen is responsible for the safety of all dikes and dunes in the Zeeland region, the southwest of The Netherlands. To perform its core tasks in a more sustainable and smarter way, Scheldestromen is searching constantly for innovation partners. The water board is currently preparing a dike reinforcement near the village of Hansweert. Within this project, Scheldestromen, together with innovation partner NETICS, is investigating a way to make the required new stone cladding of the dikes more sustainable by making it from dredging sludge. Scheldestromen manages 424 km of primary flood defences. The safety of these barriers is currently being assessed on the basis of the new so-called WBI2017standard. The Westerscheldedijk around Hansweert, with a length of 4.5 km, is a ‘primary water defence system’ and according to this legal standard it should be extra safe, given the low location of the village. Thus, after calculating and checking the dike, it appeared that there’s a reinforcement challenge to make this dike future-proof.
24 | INNOVATIVE MATERIALS 2 2020
The dike at Hansweert is part of the Dutch Flood Protection Program (HWBP). Within this cooperation of the water boards and Rijkswaterstaat, efforts are being made to strengthen the primary flood defenses so that they meet the legal standards laid down in the Water Act by 2050. In addition to the ‘normal’ work, the Flood Protection Program (HWBP) encourages water boards to innovate. In this way, it could reduce the costs of the enormous task that awaits the Netherlands: reinforcing approximately 1100 km of dikes until
2050. Scheldestromen has set up an innovation program for Dijkverzwaring Hansweert for both process and technical innovations.
Fully circular
Scheldestromen aims to be completely energy-neutral by 2025 and fully circular by 2050. In this perspective, production and transport of cladding stones is a point of attention. Previously, these stones came from quarries hundreds to thousands of kilometres away. In recent decades, these blocks have mainly been
