Abstract
AbstractGround surface dynamics is one of the processes influencing the future of the Wadden Sea area. Vertical land movement, both subsidence and heave, is a direct contributor to changes in the relative sea level. It is defined as the change of height of the Earth's surface with respect to a vertical datum. In the Netherlands, the Normaal Amsterdams Peil (NAP) is the official height datum, but its realisation via reference benchmarks is not time-dependent. Consequently, NAP benchmarks are not optimal for monitoring physical processes such as land subsidence. However, surface subsidence can be regarded as a differential signal: the vertical motion of one location relative to the vertical motion of another location. In this case, the actual geodetic height datum is superfluous.In the present paper, we highlight the processes that cause subsidence, with specific focus on the Wadden Sea area. The focus will be toward anthropogenic causes of subsidence, and how to understand them; how to measure and monitor and use these measurements for better characterisation and forecasting; with some details on the activities in the Wadden Sea that are relevant in this respect. This naturally leads to the identification of knowledge gaps and to the formulation of notions for future research.
Highlights
Subsidence is one of the processes influencing the dynamics of the Wadden Sea region
For the Wadden Sea area, the forecasts must always be translated into an average value for each tidal basin in order to assess the impact on the larger Wadden Sea development
Field-scale numerical models of hydrocarbon fields are employed for the analysis of complex geomechanical phenomena that cannot be predicted in satisfactory manner by analytical modelling and have significant financial or environmental impact
Summary
Subsidence is one of the processes influencing the dynamics of the Wadden Sea region. The crucial variable in this context is the change of the relative sea level – the local sea level relative to the onshore land elevation (Van der Spek, 2018; Vermeersen et al, 2018; Wang et al, 2018) In this contribution we discuss subsidence in the context of the Dutch Wadden Sea. We start by describing the processes causing subsidence and how these can be modelled. For the Wadden Sea area, the forecasts must always be translated into an average value for each tidal basin in order to assess the impact on the larger Wadden Sea development. They must always be accompanied by a quality measure.
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