Sediment management in Europe: from pollution control towards reuse

摘要

Dealing with sedimentation sustainably will take considerable effort at a river basin level because of the complexity of the mechanisms involved. KAY HAMER reports on interesting initiatives that are under way with the aim of achieving this. A considerable percentage of the world's population lives close to the coast or beside rivers, which means that rivers and waterways are important elements of human infrastructure. However, scientists estimated recently that about 700,000,000m~3 sediments are deposited in European deltas, estuaries, harbours and coastal waterways each year. From an anthropocentric point of view, too much is being deposited in the wrong places, because 200,000,000m~3 of this total has to be dredged annually.