River flooding and landscape changes impact ecological conditions of a scour hole lake in the Rhine-Meuse delta, The Netherlands

A 400-year sediment record from an 18 m deep scour hole lake (Haarsteegse Wiel) near the Meuse River in the Netherlands was investigated for past changes in water quality, flooding frequency and landscape change using geophysical, geochemical and micropaleontological information. The results are highly significant for determining long-term...

Performance of the ensemble Kalman filter outside of existing wells for a channelized reservoir

The ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) appears to give good results for matching production data at existing wells. However, the predictive power of these models outside of the existing wells is much more uncertain. In this paper, for a channelized reservoir for five different cases with different levels of information the production history is...

Sediment deposition and net phosphorus retention in a hydraulically restored lowland river floodplain in Denmark: Combining field and laboratory experiments

Restoration of river systems allowing the transformation of former drained and dry riparian areas into riparian wetlands will increase the overbank storage of sediment and sediment-associated phosphorus (P). Wetland restoration is therefore a cost-effective mitigation measure to reduce the sediment and nutrient transport to river systems. The...

Bioavailability and biodegradation of nonylphenol in sediment determined with chemical and bioanalysis

The surfactant nonylphenol (NP) is an endocrine-disrupting compound that is widely spread throughout the environment. Although environmental risk assessments are based on total NP concentrations, only the bioavailable fraction posses an environmental risk. The present study describes the bioavailability and biodegradability of NP over time in...

The confluence area of Rhine, Meuse, and Belgian rivers: Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene fluvial history of the northern Lower Rhine Embayment

The fluvial history of the northern Lower Rhine Embayment shows interplay of three main river systems: Rhine, Meuse and smaller rivers draining the central and northern part of Belgium. The Pliocene and Early Pleistocene (pre-)Rhine and Meuse river systems had their conjunction in the southern part of the Roer Valley Graben between Aachen and...

Late Neogene continental stages in NW Europe revisited

Pollen records from fluvial deposits in The Netherlands have traditionally been used to establish continental stages for the Neogene in NW Europe. These stages are still widely used across Europe for stratigraphic correlations and palaeoclimatic studies. Despite their extensive use, the validity of this continental correlation scheme for the...

Regional sediment deficits in the Dutch lowlands: Implications for long-term land-use options

Background, Aim and Scope. Coastal and river plains are the surfaces of depositional systems, to which sediment input is a parameter of key-importance. Their habitation and economic development usually requires protection with dikes, quays, etc., which are effective in retaining floods but have the side effect of impeding sedimentation in their...

Characterization of the reactivity of riverine heterogeneous sediments using a facies-based approach; the Rhine-Meuse delta (The Netherlands)

Large groundwater resources are found in densely populated lowland areas, which consist often of young unconsolidated and reduced sediments. When anthropogenic activities lead to oxygenation of the aquifer, breakdown of the main reduced fractions, i.e. sedimentary organic matter (SOM) and pyrite, could lead to severe groundwater deterioration...

Introduction of the boxtel formation and implications for the quaternary lithostratigraphy of the Netherlands

Application of the traditional lithostratigraphic framework to subdivide the Middle- and Upper-Quaternary locally-derived fine-grained deposits in the Netherlands is problematic. Deposits of many formations cannot be distinguished from each other based on lithological characteristics and stratigraphic position alone. To overcome this problem, we...

Paleoerosion rates from cosmogenic 10Be in a 1.3 Ma terrace sequence: Response of the river Meuse to changes in climate and rock uplift

River-borne quartz carries a cosmogenic nuclide memory that is a function of the catchment-wide erosion rate. This record may be preserved in fluvial deposits such as river terraces. If the age of a terrace is independently known and transport time in the river system is relatively short, then the upstream erosion rate at the time of terrace...

Timing of the last sequence boundary in a fluvial setting near the highstand shoreline - Insights from optical dating

We investigated, by means of optical dating, the chronostratigraphic nature of the sequence boundary associated with the last glacial in a sandy to gravelly compound paleovalley fill, just landward of the highstand shoreline in the Rhine-Meuse Delta (Netherlands). Laterally extensive fluvial strata deposited during oxygen isotope stage 4, coeval...