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The Land Subsidence and Sea Level Change Committee is a platform of scientists and experts from the field for exchanging and communicating knowledge and coordinating and initiating research in the field of Land Subsidence and Sea Level Change in the Netherlands. The committee is an interdisciplinary body.
Mission
The Land Subsidence and Sea Level Change Committee provides direction to fundamental and strategic research, promotes the recording and dissemination of relevant knowledge, has an information role and is the point of contact in the field of soil movement and sea level variation.
The committee achieves this in its meetings, in which research results in the field of Land Subsidence and Sea Level Change are presented and discussed; by formulating and stimulating specialist research (NCG PhD positions) and by maintaining (inter)national scientific contacts.
The committee promotes the recording and dissemination of relevant knowledge in this area and provides solicited and unsolicited advice to the NCG, its committees and to bodies such as the Technical Committee on Soil Movement, the State Supervision of Mines and the Committee on Land Subsidence due to Natural Gas Extraction.
The committee achieves this by providing solicited and unsolicited advice to the NCG and its committees, the scientific world and collective research programs (ICES, EU), and also to bodies such as the Technical Committee on Soil Movement, State Supervision of Mines and the Committee on Land Subsidence through Natural Gas Extraction, to support their task of providing information to society. Relations with the environment are preferably formed through personal unions.
The committee strives to increase the availability of knowledge in the field of soil movement and sea level variation and supports initiating, coordinating and steering initiatives for the further development, elaboration and implementation of a national strategy for soil movement and sea level variation. The available knowledge and information from the various technical disciplines must be better coordinated so that data can be synthesized.
The committee achieves this by strengthening the relationship between knowledge suppliers and knowledge buyers through thematic meetings, through NCG publications and maintaining the ‘state of the art’ through active information exchange and participation in (inter)national committees.
The committee’s tasks are carried out through consultation during meetings (3 to 4 times a year), reviewing articles, organizing study days, compiling publications and presentations, initiating specialist research and maintaining (inter)national scientific contacts. During study days, detailed attention is paid to a specific issue, to which experts from outside the committee are also invited.
The committee strives for a composition with disciplinary balance that fits the current social and scientific context. In addition to the traditionally strong presence of geodesy, there is also a good connection with geology, seismology, geophysics, geotechnics and hydrology. In addition to an accurate representation of the problems of ground movement and sea level variation, there is also a growing need for insight into underlying physical processes and for insight into trends and trend breaks. In addition to the strongly represented knowledge input, the composition of the committee also recognizes the voice of knowledge use through the participating oil and gas companies. The committee does not consider soil change due to surface raw material extraction and local settlements due to (underground) construction to be its primary area of interest.
The expectation that social interest in the problems of soil movement and sea level variation will be great in the coming years is justified. The recent policy memos (5th Spatial Planning Memorandum, 3rd Coastal Memorandum) are aimed at integrating functionality and modality. For example, the influence of climate change is recognized in an expected sea level rise and tidal change, the expected increase in maximum precipitation and high water levels requires drastic water management adjustments and landscape, cultural and natural values also play a greater role internationally in political and social decision-making with regard to raw material extraction ( gas, oil, salt, water), reclamation and coastal formation. The realization that the feasibility of society has its limits raises the question of the feasibility and consequences of human interventions. The soil movement problem is an essential aspect of this and the committee’s path to ensure that large-scale measurements become cheaper, faster and, above all, more precise, will be continued vigorously.
The committee considers quality assurance of technical-scientific aspects of soil movement and sea level variation to be the most important of its tasks, in addition to that of knowledge conservator and information provider. She does not conduct research herself, but stimulates, consults, reports and advises on processes and projects in her area of interest. The topics that require attention in the coming years form the research agenda.