During a regular safety check of the Dutch coastline several locations were identified where the coastal protection is unable to withstand a 4,000 years super storm.
These locations are seen as weak links in the Dutch coastline.
In Cadzand Bad, located close to the Belgian border in the Dutch province Zeeland, an important dewatering sluice system was found to be one of these weak links.
Measures were therefore required to upgrade the safety of this sluice.
The coastal resort Cadzand-Bath has taken this opportunity to enhance its attractiveness alongside the essentially necessary safety measures.
In order to improve the safety at the location of the dewatering sluice, there were 2 options:
Since it was found impossible to increase the crest level of the structure, 2 breakwaters are being constructed to reduce the waves in front of the sluice.
Between those breakwaters, a marina will be built providing space for up to 125 leisure boats. The new breakwaters will be extended to nine meters of water depth (total length 550m and 350m) to limit sand intrusion into the outlet and marina.
The breakwaters are protected by Xbloc® armor units of 4 and 10 tons, which were tested during physical model tests at BAM’s hydraulic laboratory in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
The Xblocs® are produced in the Belgian seaport of Zeebrugge and are shipped to site. A barge offloading facility has been built to offload the Xblocs and the rock materials which are also delivered to site by sea. Due to material delivery by sea disturbances during tourist peak season can be avoided as much as possible.
Detailed Design of the breakwaters has been prepared by BAM Infra.
The construction works are carried out by the teams of BAM Infra and Martens en Van Oord.
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