Abstract. A large-scale field campaign has been carried out on the ebb-tidal delta (ETD) of Ameland Inlet, a basin of the Wadden Sea in the Netherlands, as well as on three transects along the Dutch lower shoreface. With this campaign, as part of KustGenese2.0 (Coastal Genesis 2.0) and SEAWAD, we aimed to gain new knowledge on the processes driving sediment transport and benthic species distribution in such a dynamic environment. These new insights will ultimately help the development of optimal strategies to nourish the Dutch coastal zone in order to prevent coastal erosion and keep up with sea level rise. The dataset obtained from the field campaign consists of: (i) bathymetry data from single beam and multibeam measurements; (ii) flow, waves, sediment concentration, conductivity and temperature, and bedforms at 10 locations on the delta; 7 stand-alone pressure sensors deployed on the ebb-tidal shoal; and 6 ADCPs on the watersheds; (iii) bed composition and macro benthic species from 166 (in 2017), 53 (in 2018) boxcores, 21 vibrocores; (iv) discharge measurements through the inlet; (v) X-band radar; (vi) meterological data. The combination of all these measurements at the same time makes this dataset unique and enables us to investigate the interactions between sediment transport, hydrodynamics, morphology and the benthic ecosystem in more detail. The data is publicly available at 4TU Centre for Research Data at https://doi.org/10.4121/collection:seawad (Delft University of Technology et al., 2019).
The geomorphology of an ebb-tidal-delta linked to benthic species distribution and functionality
