STENCIL – Strategies and Tools for Environmentally friendly shore Nourishments as Climate change Impact Low regret measures

Along sandy shorelines worldwide, shore nourishments have become a routine soft coastal protection measure. Shore nourishments are found more effective, multi-functional, environmentally-friendly and adaptive in mitigating coastal erosion compared to traditional hard solutions. These benefits are in line with the recent paradigm shift in coastal management towards a more integrated (ICZM) and ecosystem based (EAM) approach. For the UNESCO protected Wadden Sea, shore nourishments are, for these reasons, regarded as one of the most promising solutions to deal with sea level rise and increasing storm intensities on the long term. Project STENCIL joins the expertise of coastal engineers, geologists, biologists and toxicologists to set a first step towards long term shore nourishment strategies for the German Wadden Sea. Improved hydrodynamic and morphodynamic tools, models and methods are strives for, as well as the impact on bentic habitats is evaluated on both dredge and nourish sites. The project makes use of data analysis, physical and numerical modelling.