Netherlands Centre for Coastal Research
The summary and photos of the NCK symposium on 'Mud dynamics in the Southern North Sea and its interaction with ecological processes' held on Tuesday the 3rd of July are now avaiable online! Check it out here.
Mud plays an important role in the ecological functioning of the Southern North Sea. The reason for this important role is twofold: in the water column, suspended mud particles have a crucial influence on the light climate, thereby influencing primary production and the base of the food web. In the seabed, mud acts as cohesive sediment, which is often relatively rich in nutrients and provides an essential stable matrix for organisms to construct their burrows. Therefore, understanding the behaviour and transport of mud in the marine environment, and its interaction with ecological processes, bears great societal relevance for human activities taking place in the North Sea. These human activities include, but are not limited to, sand mining, nourishments and land reclamations. Considering that the magnitude and amount of human activities is likely to increase in the near future, it is essential to share our knowledge on mud dynamics in the North Sea. Therefore, TUDelft and Deltares (in cooperation with NIOZ) were organising this theme day.
Registration for this event is now closed.
Our barrier coast protects land from flooding and serves as a beautiful nature and recreational area. Knowledge about these coastal systems is crucial to maintain them and to allow natural dynamics, also under future accelerated relative sea level rise. During this mini-symposium on Thursday 14th of June, a variety of presenters will tell us about the history and future of barrier coasts from an archaeological to a management point of view. Dr. Bert van der Valk (Deltares and former NCK Programme Secretary) developed valuable knowledge and worked with great pleasure on barrier coasts and dune systems during his career, and this symposium is organised for the entire NCK community on the occasion of his retirement. An excursion to Spanjaards Duin followed by drinks will conclude this special event. View the program and register for this event here.
The NCK days 2018 in Teylers Museum were a big success. This year's edition had a new format, with a larger number of shorter talks. The presenters were challenged to condense their talks to 7 minutes and succeeded! We would like to thanks all 135 participants for their contribution to the success, and off course special thanks to Sytze van Heteren and Ina Vissinga-Schalkwijk for the excellent organisation and strict time management.
The book of abstract is now available 
here!
