Delta Life 8

15 DELTARES, OCTOBER 2017 Chic infrastructure BY PJOTR VAN LENTEREN IMAGE MIDDELKERKE.BE / ISTOCKPHOTO 1 4 3 2 4 CASES 1 Promenades that take tourists back a hundred years: seafront apartments, terraces to saunter past, the beach for sunbathing, the sea for bathing. You can find them all the way along the North Sea coast in the Netherlands, Belgium and Great Britain. Sea-level rise and more powerful waves are threats to the promenades. But uncompromising coastal defences depress property prices and tourism. This is a challenge for the traditional Flemish coastal community of Middelkerke-Westende. The sea dike is too low in several places and it will be submerged by the waves if there is a superstorm. The municipal authority can choose between a storm wall or a breakwater extension in combination with raising the beach. That will force the waves to break before they reach the dike. Extra dunes will also create more nature around the urbanised Middelkerke. Both solutions are equally secure. The extension is designed to break the power of the waves in time, but you can look over it without difficulty and you can still get to the beach. 'Flanders is eager to use the knowledge developed in the Netherlands by Rijkswaterstaat for flood-risk assessment,' explains consultant Marien Boers. Deltares is leading a consortium that is making the erosion and wave calculations. More information: marien.boers@deltares.nl 2 Checking railways from space Railways on soft delta sub­ surfaces can be damaged by land subsidence. Deltares checks the earth bodies and predicts their lifetimes using satellite imagery. More information: arjan.venmans@deltares.nl 3 Climate-resilient roads in Paraguay In Paraguay, Deltares is looking at three motorways to analyse the causes, effects and consequences of ex­ treme temperatures and extreme rainfall. After the in- tense rainfall associated with El Niño, the government has earmarked fiftymillion dollars for damage recove- ry. Some of that funding is being invested so that roads can cope better with the effects of climate change. More information: mike.woning@deltares.nl 4 Predicting pipe fractures Using big data and sensor tech- nology to predict fractures in pipes. The approach makes gas networks safer, but it can also be used for water pipes, heat net- works, power lines and telecom links. More information: henk.kruse@deltares.nl