EMERGO ? Eco-morphological functioning and management of tidal flats

Tidal flats are worldwide at risk due to human disturbances and climate change. These habitats sustain coastal food webs and provide essential ecosystem services such as coastal protection. Their conservation and restoration is a major coastal management issue. For example, ?soft? measures like sand nourishments and ?hard? measures like biogenic reef structures are being proposed and experimented with to mitigate the loss of tidal flats in the Oosterschelde (Netherlands). However, the behavior of tidal flats under different external and internal forcing is still poorly understood, as well as their morphological and ecological response to different conservation/restoration measures. The current proposal provides the scientific background on tidal flat eco-morphodynamics, aiming at improving and optimizing future management of tidal flats. Two PhD?s will study and develop a set of models for tidal flats, in which hydrodynamics, sediment dynamics, geo-morphodynamics and ecology are integrated, and that evaluates the morphological and ecological effects of management measures at different scales. We will make use of the different management regimes in Oosterschelde and Westerschelde, to elucidate and model large and medium scale management measures on tidal flat dynamics. In addition, we will use results from running pilots (nourishment, biogenic reefs), together with newly collected data on forthcoming pilots, to evaluate the effects of local-scale mitigation measures. A postdoc will integrate the scientific findings, develop guidelines and management tools and run scenarios that assess the morphological and ecological tradeoffs of different management strategies and mitigation measures. This will be done in close collaboration with our non-academic partners.