From research to practise
Water authorities have many questions about the construction of biodiverse dikes, sustainable management methods, and the possibilities for transforming existing, species-poor dikes into flower-rich variants that guarantee safety. To answer these questions, the team is developing, with financial support from the Dutch Water Authority Bank, a Functional Vegetation Typology and the Opportunity Scan for species-rich dikes.
The opportunity scan: a tool for dike management
The Opportunity Scan provides dike managers with insight into the possibilities for strong, species-rich dike vegetation on the dikes under their management. The basis for this is a functional vegetation typology, based on thousands of vegetation surveys from the National Vegetation Database. These surveys describe the species composition and relative proportion of each species on a defined area. This data is linked to soil data, site factors and strength parameters from the Future Dikes project.
With this information, the project can assess which dikes are directly suitable for species-rich grass coverings and where management interventions offer opportunities.
Read more about the Opportunity scan
Foto: Nils van Rooijen
