As world governments have been grappling with the financial crisis, the critical importance of dredging is now on the front burner. Renewed interest has been sparked in dredging and its contributions to long-term, worldwide infrastructure – to port, harbour and waterway maintenance and development, to ensuring coastal protection and to the exploration for energy and the supply of energy sources, be it oil and gas offshore or newly designed windmill farms at sea. From Australia to Germany to the United States and everywhere in between, public infrastructure spending, including ports and waterways, has become part of government stimulus packages, aimed at creating jobs and halting the economic downward slide.

And rightfully so. What better moment than now to allocate funds to take advantage of opportunities for improving and expanding some of the world’s greatest water-related assets and stimulating job creation in the maritime construction sector.

In China, hundreds of billions of euros have been stipulated for railway, highway, airport, port, urban and rural grid. Port construction and waterways development is expected to continue at the same rate as in the past several years as a stimulus against the recession. In Germany, as part of the Government’s €80-billion stimulus package more than €1.8 billion (US$2.5 billion) will flow into German waterway projects this year and next, double the amount in the previous two years. This clearly recognises the fact that waterways are a more energy and environmentally efficient way of moving large volumes of freight than the already congested roadways. In the Netherlands, the Government presented a €6-billion (US$ 8.1-billion) economic stimulus plan to parliament, saying the funds would be spent over the next six years, primarily on infrastructure projects, unemployment prevention and sustainable energy.

Dredging is acknowledged as an integral part of all these projects. But the importance of dredging also puts a responsibility on the dredging industry for tackling complex challenges with innovative solutions, a responsibility which all members of the dredging community, from engineers to crews to project managers, take seriously.

This issue of Terra et Aqua examines two such ingenious approaches: An article on Ireland’s beneficial use of dredged material points out that in an island nation such as Ireland where dredging is essential, the search for more cost-efficient means of achieving coastal security, as well as port development, can be combined by using, rather than disposing of, dredged material. This comprehensive study demonstrates how the removal of sediment from harbours can be used to construct a coastal structure that is sustainable, rather than treating dredged material as a waste. Another article, from Belgium, describes how a new design approach and offshore marine operations have been developed for the construction of the foundations for the first phase of the Thornton Bank Offshore Wind Farm. Innovative dredging technologies played a key role in making the realisation of these foundations feasible.

Clearly, with the appropriate commitment, rivers, waterways and coastal areas are significant assets that will remain important both to business and the broader community. Dredging as always has a tremendous role to play in realising these goals, in helping to stimulate the economy and, literally and figuratively, in keeping things afloat.

Koos van Oord
President, IADC