Dutch title: Testerep- Evolutie van het Vlaamse kustlandschap 5000BP - nu
Funder identifier: S007522N (FWO contract id)
Complementary funding codes: 7010 - FWO research project
Acronym: TESTEREP
Period: October 2021 till September 2025
Status: In Progress
Thesaurus terms Coastal zone; Geoarchaeology; Marine geoscience; Seabed; Stratigraphy
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- Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee (VLIZ), more, researcher
- Plets, Ruth, partner
- Mestdagh, Thomas, partner
- Martens, Chantal, partner
- De Smet, Bart, partner
- Seys, Jan, partner
- Cartelle, Victor, partner
- Van Wesemael, Wout, partner
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), more, organiser
- KU Leuven (KULeuven), more, partner
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| Maintaining a sustainable relationship with the North Sea in an era of rapid climate change is one of Flanders’ great challenges today and for the future. Relative sea-level rise is not only a threat for the coastal plain and its society now, but has posed a risk throughout time. The interaction between past environmental conditions, the paleogeomorphology and the strategies developed by people to live in this coastal landscape, has been pivotal in shaping the large-scale coastal dynamics (e.g. silting up of tidal inlets and land loss through erosion) that have led to the present-day situation. This past evolution can offer valuable lessons for future actions aimed at creating a more sustainable coastline. The former Testerep peninsula, once located on the Flemish coast, is the ideal case study to derive such lessons. Its preserved southern portion is now part of the polders and beach, while its northern side, including the medieval city of Ostend, has been lost to the sea. To study the evolution and eventual demise of Testerep over the past 5000 years, existing data on historic natural (e.g. tidal inlets) and manmade (e.g. dikes) features will be supplemented with new on- and offshore data from LiDAR, seismic, magnetic and EMI surveys, cores, excavations, and samples for pollen, radiocarbon and OSL. All information will be integrated and studied using GIS analyses and morphological and hydrodynamic modelling to advance multidisciplinary research across the sea-land boundary. Resulting products will include palaeogeographic maps, state-of-the-art 3D reconstructions and interactive 3D simulations. The aim of the Simon Stevin surveys is to collect seismic and core data in the offshore part, as part of the marine aspect of this study. |
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