A nature based perspective on dikes within hybrid flood defences

Summary

Due to climate change coastal dikes have to be adapted to ensure sufficient flood protection in the future. Instead of traditional dike crest heightening and widening, dikes can also be integrated with vegetated foreshores into a hybrid flood defence. These foreshores provide nature-base flood protection. In my PhD thesis I provided a nature-based perspective on the dikes within hybrid flood defences. These dikes, specifically at managed realignments, were studied through literature and field visits, in a scaled flume and with two experiments on the dike in Living Lab Hedwige-Prosperpolder. The results showed the dike-foreshore interaction can be enhanced by creating a vegetated revetment. The vegetated revetment serves flood protection and simultaneously enhances the ecological value of dikes. This way the dike can be integrated with a vegetated foreshore to form one hybrid nature-based flood defence that is valuable for flood prevention, flood impact reduction, and ecology.