After the 1953 and 1976 North Sea floods, a flood defense plan, called the Sigma Plan, was conceived to protect the Flemish part of the Scheldt estuary against future storm surges.
The plan is governed by Waterwegen en Zeekanaal NV (W&Z), a Flemish government agency and since 2005 aims to combine flood defense with strengthening the river’s ecology through the creation of flood control areas.
W&Z set up a pilot project in Dendermonde, involving the construction of a compartment dyke of a flood control area using dredged material from the River Scheldt without intermediate storage between the dredging and the construction process.
Jan De Nul Group came up with the innovative solution to bring the dredged sediments ashore using high density pumps and to create engineered sediments from the soft not-suitable sediments by applying and optimizing the stabilization and solidification methodology.