Applying an analogue for a conceptual model for the development of a mega nourishment

This paper discusses the effectiveness of a mega-nourishment project. Mega-nourishment is a new technology for beach nourishment that has recently been developed. It arises as an alternative to beaches where a structural erosion problem is observed and there is the need for continuously nourishments works. A pilot project was implemented near The Hague (The Netherlands) in October 2011, called the Sand Engine [Mulder 2000], however the impacts of such project are widely unknown. From this perspective the study of a natural coastal area that was subjected to similar conditions can generate know how about the impacts of such a project. One of these natural examples is Ameland: one of the Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. Ameland experienced large natural nourishment coming from the ebb tidal delta. The nourishment shape and magnitude were in the same order of magnitude of to the Sand Engine project, leading to a comparison point. In the Ameland case this nourishment occurred on 1990`s and on 1993 achieved a similar shape to the Sand Engine pilot project and currently almost all the sediment is already spread. So from the natural case we can assume that the Sand Engine is going to take around 2 decades to spread all the nourished sediment, a special care should be taken in the down-drift coast to avoid early erosion