Smart and sustainable design for offshore operations in a sandy seabed - the SANDBOX programme

Shallow coastal seas are subject to an increasing pressure by offshore operations, such as sand mining and the construction and operation of offshore infrastructure. The seabed topography, seabed life, sediment dynamics and hydrodynamics form a coupled system. When disturbed, this coupled system needs time to recover. Anthropogenic disturbances will affect the (local) ecosystem, which in turn will affect the sediment-water interaction and the potential of the seabed to store fine sediments. Consequently, the potential of the system for recovery may be affected. This paper poses a research outline focused 7on a better understanding of the functioning and stability of the coupled system during the lifetime of the offshore operation. This requires integration of knowledge from ecology, geomorphology and fine sediment dynamics, where the authors specifically focus on geomorphology.