Making room for rivers
The goal of the Dutch Room for the River Program is to give the river more room to be able to manage higher water levels. For 30 locations measures were taken to give the river space to flood safely. This as an alternative to further increase the height of the dikes. To make this possible, ~ 40 mln. m3 of soils and sediments had to be reallocated. Most of the soils/sediments could be used within the project, but for some of the sediments an under water storage site (much like a Confined Deposition Facility or CDF) had to be constructed. By using old (or sometimes newly constructed) quarry sites (gravel, sand or clay) these quarry sites could be partially filled. The end result is an increase in wetland and shallow lake habitat.
Constructing a CDF type of solution (the stored sediments have contamination levels in line with the soil use specific standards, hence they are not seen as contaminated) in former pit lakes is one example of beneficial sediment use within room for the river. There are more examples. See the provided web links for information on the 30 locations.
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