Central Dredging Association’s Webinar in January

The Central Dredging Association’s (CEDA) webinar, entitled “Adaptive Management for Dredging”, is scheduled for January 19, 2016 from 14:00-15:00 hrs CET.

The webinar will be presented on behalf of the CEDA Environment Commission by Gerard van by Gerard van Raalte, Chairman of the CEDA Working Group on Adaptive Management, senior expert at Royal Boskalis Westminster/Hydronamic, the Netherlands.

Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions via text during the webinar, and verbally after the presentation.

The webinar will outline concepts of integrating adaptive management for the enhancement of the environment into dredging activities (inclusive of placement/disposal/reclamation).

It will also offer information on how to successfully apply adaptive management in dredging projects, illustrated along a number of case histories.

Adaptive Management

Dredging projects are often permitted with license conditions or regulations based on an assessment of the potential environmental effects.

For those dredging projects where the environmental outcome can, with less certainty, be assessed, a sequence of more intense and targeted monitoring, impact assessment and management actions might be implemented. This sequence of activities is understood as ‘adaptive management’ (AM), although various ways of implementation may exist.

AM can be an efficient and cost-effective management process in dredging projects, it helps to achieve goals by addressing uncertainty and by incorporating adaptivity in decision-making as the project develops.

AM in dredging projects represents a “modern” approach and has the potential to become good practice in the future, although is not likely to become good practice for all kinds of dredging projects.

The need for integrating AM in dredging projects is already becoming recognized, but will probably increase in future.