Abstract
During storms, long-period water level oscillations can occur on the North Sea. The meteorological phenomena that cause these oscillations are known to a large extent and include atmospheric single pulse perturbations or oscillations of longer duration and larger spatial scale (De Jong in Origin and prediction of seiches in Rotterdam harbour basins, Delft University of Technology, ISBN 90-9017925-9, 2004). During such events, standing waves, or ‘seiches’, can occur in the ports along the Dutch North Sea coast. These seiches need to be considered in the height criteria for the dikes and other flood protection works around the port basins. Over the last decades, several projects on the climatology of seiching have been performed by Deltares under assignment by the Dutch Ministry of Public Works. Results of these projects served to update the height criteria for the storm surge barriers in the Port of Rotterdam, and as input to the design of two large new sea locks for other coastal ports, in IJmuiden and Terneuzen. This paper describes the three project locations: the statistical and hydrodynamical analyses of seiche events at these locations and the translation of the results into a buffer, or ‘seiche allowance’, to the height criteria.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Please note that the influence of changes in the background atmospheric pressure was not considered here in this conceptual 1D model. The effect would correspond to quasi-static changes in the mean water level that compared to the water depths present will not have a large influence on the overall system behaviour analysed here.
One event, from December 2005, was left out from original set of eight events because this was an exceptional situation, where the centre of the depression passed directly over IJmuiden.
For statistical analyses, the complete data set should be applied and preferably consisting of much more events. Such a larger database would then also include situations with the opposite situation, with a low-pressure system passing directly over Rotterdam and when IJmuiden may show a much larger response. If many events would be considered as part of a statistical analysis, these effects may cancel each other out. Considering that the most influential low-pressure systems for the water levels along the Dutch coast typically pass more to the north of the Netherlands, this may not fully be the case, but using seiche statistics from Rotterdam also for IJmuiden (Sect. 5) would then be conservative.
A sensitivity test on the specific value of this water level offset (between 0 and 0.5 m) indicated differences in the order of 0.05 m in normative value for the NSE (10,000 years) relative to the result for the selected offset value of 0.2 m.
References
De Jong MPC (2004) Origin and prediction of seiches in Rotterdam harbour basins, Delft University of Technology, 2004, ISBN 90-9017925-9
De Jong MPC, Battjes JA (2004) Analysis and prediction of seiches in Rotterdam harbour basins. In: 29th international conference coastal engineering, Lisbon, Portugal, vol 2, pp 1238–1250
De Jong MPC, Borsboom MJA (2012) A practical post-processing method to obtain wave parameters from phase-resolving wave model results. Int J Ocean Clim Syst 3(4)
De Jong MPC, Dekker J, Kant G (2006) Characteristics of seiches in the Port of Rotterdam during design storm conditions. In: Proceedings of 30th international conference coastal engineering, vol 2, pp 1210–1221
Deltares (2010) Toets- en Rekenpeilen Kust en Estuaria ten behoeve van de HR 2011, Deltares report 1202341-002-HYE-0060, Available from website: https://www.helpdeskwater.nl/onderwerpen/waterveiligheid/primaire/ beoordelen/zoeken-documenten/@205906/toets-rekenpeilen/(visited at 18 November, 2019), Authors: Douwe Dillingh and Joao de Lima Rego
Kostense JK, Meijer KL, Dingemans MW, Mynett AE, van den Bosch P (1986). Wave energy dissipation in arbitrarily shaped harbours of variable depth. In: Proceedings of 20th international conference coastal engineering, pp 2002–2016
Proudman J (1953) Dynamical oceanography. Methuen and Co, London
RWS (1961) Rapport Deltacommissie, Contribution III-5, Considerations on storm surges and tidal motions (in Dutch)
RWS (2019) Seiches-website (in Dutch), https://waterberichtgeving.rws.nl/water-en-weer/metingen/seiches-pagina, (visited at 18 November, 2019)
Vatvani D, Van Dongeren A, Kroos J, Van Ormondt M (2018) Simulation of 2017 meteo-tsunami event along the Dutch Coast, 2018 Ocean Sciences Meeting, Paper abstract 312261, Portland, Oregon, United States
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management for their permission to use their data and publish the results of the different studies related to meteorologically generated long waves on the North Sea and their influences along the Dutch coast. Dr. M. Bottema of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management is acknowledged for providing very useful feedback on an earlier draft of this document.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
de Jong, M.P.C., Reijmerink, S.P. & Beckers, J.V.L. Meteorologically generated long-period waves and their impact on the Dutch primary national flooding protection system. Nat Hazards 106, 1421–1443 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-020-04081-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-020-04081-x