About

To ensure coastal safety, the Flemish government invests in the implementation of the Master Plan for Coastal Safety. At the same time it challenges the combination of new spatial developments and coastal protection.  The main protective measure consists in the supply of sand on beaches and the foreshore.

Despite the fact that sand supply is an old and widely used protection technique, the design and the implementation of an efficient and sustainable nourishment is still a big challenge. Local accretion and erosion of our beaches are are indeed complex and the result of a combination of different processes like waves, tides, sediment transport, wind …  Moreover climate change scenarios comprise large uncertainties related to its speed and its possible consequences.  Further research is needed to improve the current knowledge and to implement it to our coastline.

With this project we want to respond to international developments and anticipate the knowledge that will be needed to ensure a safe and pleasant coast in the nearby future on the basis of five scientific objectives.

CREST also aims at improving access to existing data. The results from this project are of immediate use to other researchers and professionals in their field of expertise.

Background information

This project with primarily a social finality is part of the Strategic Basic Research (SBO) programme of the Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (previously lead by IWT).

Duration: 1 November 2015 – 31 October 2019

Budget: 1.897.466 EUR

The consortium exists of experts from the Universities of Leuven, Ghent and Brussels, Flanders Hydraulics Research, Coastal Division and Maritime Access of the Flemish Government, RBINS-OD Nature and Flanders Marine Institute complemented with valorisation partners (IMDC and Fides Engineering). They all have a research background in physical aspects of coastal processes (waves, currents, sediment dynamics). In addition, interim feedback is organised with a Guidance Committee and technical experts from Belgium and abroad.

Project coordinator is Jaak Monbaliu, professor at  the University of Leuven.