Mariakerke site description

Integrated port and coastal management management at Oostende

Mariakerke is a seaside resort located in Ostend city, south of the seaport Oostende. The stretch of coast is characterised by sandy coast, cross-shore groins and the prominent Harbour jetties at the port of Oostende. Over the period of 2007 to 2015 new harbour jetties were constructed and beach nourishments were executed to increase the safety against flooding during storm surges. The harbour jetties serve two goals: reducing the penetration of sediment and waves into the harbour entrance and fixation of the beach nourishment. These and more recent beach nourishments are part of the Masterplan for Coastal Safety of the Flemish Government , which encompasses several types of measures to protect Belgian coastal areas against flooding due to storms.

Optimizing shore nourishments

In search of economical and morphological more efficient beach nourishments Mariakerke was chosen as a suitable for the execution of a full-scale experiment on shore face nourishments. In 2014 an experimental beach nourishment of approximately 500.000 m3 took place over a 4 km coastal stretch, combined with a shore face nourishment along the most northeast two kilometres. The key research question is:

How significant is the contribution of a combined beach and shoreface nourishment to coastal safety in comparison with the effects of a beach nourishment only.

The development of the beach and this nourishment is monitored continuously by Argus cameras. Furthermore, every half year measurement campaings take place using in situ instruments to record bathymetry, currents and waves.

Argus station

The Argus station at Mariakerke was installed in 2014 and is to monitor the beach for a period of at least 3 years. The station consists of six cameras which are mounted on a pole on top of the hotel Vayamundo De Kinkhoorn & Ravelingen. The cameras cover a 180 degree view. Selected images from this site are sent and stored at the Deltares Argus image archive. The instalation of the Argus station at Mariakerke was commisioned to Deltares by the Flanders Hydraulics Research a division of the department of Mobility and Public Works of the Flemish Government

Most recent images

The images from Mariakerke beach are updated a few times per day. Here is the most recent available image (there can be a delay).

Processing and results

The images from the sation are procesed using the Argus Runtime Environment tools to produce: Bathymetry, hydrodynamics and run-up.The results of the bathymetry processing over 2015 were stored in an Deltares open data server. The figure shows an example dataset from September 2014.