We investigate how crop cultivation started in the Dutch lowlands. In their research, Huisman and Cohen make use of geological datasets, geophysical measurements, mechanical drilling and microscopic and palaeobotanical techniques. All these means will help them to investigate how and how quickly crop cultivation was introduced.

Project lead by Hans Huisman (PI, RUG) & Kim Cohen (co-PI, UU).

1 PhD at Utrecht (Familetto @ Dept. Ph.G.; supervised by Cohen, Huisman, Hoek, Stouthamer) - RM Delta buried levee landscapes. Central NL lagoon 'Swifterbant' inland tidal river levees, paleo-soil investigation, micromorphology, landscape suitability, offsite evidence of human land clearing and neolithic tillage 

1 PhD at Groningen (Smuk @ GIA; supervised by Huisman, Schepers, Raemaekers, ...) - archaeobotany, evidence for agricultural human presence in paleovegetation signals.

Further consortia partners: Barcelona Archeobotany (Madello), BIAX (Kubiak-Martens), RAAP (Willemse).

Co-Applicant research proposal. Site selection in the RM-delta base on Rhine-Meuse delta data sets (see RM Delta data infrastructure). Mechanical corings . Multidisciplinary core sampling (with Hoek a.m.o.). Palaeogeographical landscape analysis, palaeohydrology (past groundwater and flooding regime), fluviodeltaic soils (fluvisols, top soil maturity, textural suitabilty). Integration of the physical geographical findings and research questions, with offsite geoarcheological/archeobotanical ones (how to read evidence for meso/neolithic human presence; our two RUG-UU, UU-RUG Phd's) and cultural archeological ones (different views on process and timing of neolithisation, reduced or abandoned hunter/gathering (habitat, environment), replaced with agriculture (animals, crops, land...; archeology as part of Humanities). 

• dr. Wim Hoek
• prof. dr. Esther Stouthamer
• Elena Familetto MSc

• Hans Huisman (RUG); various others.

The project “The long-term relationship between sea-level change and sedimentation in the North Sea” (funding: NIOZ-UU 2020.33) involves computer modelling of sea-level and the bending of the crust under changing weights of ice, water and sediments. This is called glacioisostasy, hydroisostasy and sedimentation-isostasy respectively.  Numeric modeling of glacio- and hydroisostasy is quite established. How to properly include sedimentation, however, and how much that affects established understanding of sea-level rise, is to be researched and discovered. The PhD student will do this by developing data-assimilation techniques taking in geological mapping products of the Netherlands and building out NIOZ-UU’s geophysical modelling suite.

See: https://www.nioz.nl/en/research/uu-nioz-projects/sea-level-relationships

Paolo Stocchi and I wrote the proposal.
Dr. P. Stocchi (NIOZ) will be daily supervisor, I will be co-supervisor (UU). Prof. R.S.W. van de Wal will be promotor.
The project will have liasons with that of PhD candidate Kim de Wit (UU) in the NWA-LOSS programme.

For an overview of UU-NIOZ projects, see www.nioz.nl/en/research/uu-nioz-collaboration

• prof. dr. Roderik van de Wal

• Dr. Paolo Stocchi (NIOZ)

Ongoing subsidence is an complex problem in the Dutch lowlands for cities and polder land. Old strategies for coping have bottom limits. New strategies will be arranged and the pacing of subsidence mapped and modelled, so that the measures to negotiate and decide on have figures in mm and €.

• prof. mr. dr. Frank Groothuijse
• dr. ir. Dries Hegger
• dr. Gilles Erkens
• dr. ir. M.M. (Mariet) Hefting
• prof. mr. Marleen van Rijswick
• prof. dr. Peter Driessen
• prof. dr. Esther Stouthamer
• Ruth de Klerk
• dr. Oscar van Vliet
• Duygu Tolunay
• Kim de Wit MSc
• Bente Lexmond MSc
• Pepijn van Elderen MSc

• Gilles Erkens (Deltares)
• Bernardien Tiehatten (LOSS)
• Prof. Ramon Hanssen (TU Delft)
• J.G. Rots (TU Delft)
• K.G. Gavin (TU Delft)
• Prof. Ekko van Ierland (WUR)
• Prof. Hans-Peter Weikard (WUR)
• Jan Willem van Groenigen (WUR)
• Jan JH van den Akker (WUR)
• Dr. Mandy Korff (TUD
• Deltares)
• Dr. Peter Fokker (TNO Geological Survey of the Netherlands)

Detailed knowledge of past vegetation change is a valuable resource that contributes to addressing a variety of problems, including the planning of forest restoration projects, it assists in archaeological surveys and sheds light on past human-environment interactions. For the time before historical maps, information on past vegetation comes from pollen preserved in lake sediments and peats. While the Netherlands are particularly rich in pollen analytical investigations, data and interpretations are difficult to access and therefore often not considered. We aim to overcome this shortcoming by collecting and collating the existing Dutch pollen data into a national atlas of past vegetation and land cover change with direct applications to forest restoration, archaeology, and education. The map series will contain detailed reconstructions for the period from 15,000 years ago to the present in 1000 to 500-year timesteps. All original data will be placed into the public domain using the international Neotoma platform to ensure ease of access and long-term storage. 

In constructing the maps, we will use the constraints of the abiotic landscape on the vegetation such as soil substrate, water table depth or the location of river channels for the past and present. Based on existing algorithms (Multi Scenario and Downscaling approach) we will develop a software solution for pollen-based quantitative vegetation reconstruction using environmental constraints. The wealth of information on subsurface geology in the Netherlands is internationally unprecedented providing an ideal situation to develop this approach further. The mapping will facilitate the synthesis of the many pollen diagrams spanning only a few thousand years resulting in regionally differentiated Holocene vegetation histories for the Netherlands, hitherto not available. Prior to mapping, data compilations will be used to analyse dependencies of vegetation composition and the dynamics of change on abiotic and biotic controls such as soil substrate. Resulting quantitative vegetation reconstructions will be compared to constraints not used in the map making process such as distance to the sea and known archaeological finds. Emphasis will be on reconstructions of past vegetation openness and its dependency on substrate, coastal proximity, and peat growth. The stability and resilience of different forest types will be evaluated to assist in forest restoration projects in cooperation with Staatsbosbeheer. Relationships between past vegetation patterns and archaeological finds will be analysed with support from archaeological consultants (RCE, BIAX, ADC). TNO will support the digitization of legacy data and evaluation of age models. Staatsbosbeheer and RCA will help in the dissemination of the results.

• dr. Timme Donders
• dr. Thomas Giesecke
• dr. Wim Hoek
• dr. Oliver Schmitz

Piping is a process of seepage-induced transport of sand underneath river dikes that could occur when rivers flood and can make dikes fail. Prediction of piping risk at delta scale is difficult because it demands detailed knowledge on composition of the natural substrate below the dike, e.g. grain size distribution, sorting and layering and on the way seepage water flows through this; horizontally, diagonally, via preferential paths. This project aims to identify locations of increased piping-risk below river dikes of the Dutch delta. The methods involve improved mapping of substrate below dikes throughout the delta, measurement of hydraulic characteristics of the subsurface at field test locations, and full-3D hi-res numerical modeling of the piping process. This will result in faster and more cost-efficient identification of piping-risk locations and better-informed calculation of dike stability, needed to maintain safety standards along 100-kms of dike.

• dr. Rens van Beek
• prof. dr. Esther Stouthamer
• prof. dr. ir. Marc Bierkens
• Willem-Jan Dirkx MSc
• dr. Tim Winkels

• dr. Marc Hijma - Deltares
• dr. Vera van Beek - Deltares

Design standards for flood protection in deltas require magnitude estimates of extreme (millennial) floods. The Dutch Delta Programme considers a design discharge of 18,000 m3/s an appropriate upper value the Rhine River at the German-Dutch border. Absence of a sufficiently long observational record of river discharge introduces considerable uncertainty in estimates of magnitude-frequency relations, which can only partly be solved by using statistical methods. Numerous historic flood marks along the German Rhine and sedimentary data of the youngest 2000 years contain valuable information on past extreme floods. In this interdisciplinary project we combine sedimentary and written archives from the delta with state-of-the-art reconstructions and 2D modelling of past events to quantify magnitudes of large historic floods of the lower Rhine (to schematize cases I: 1926, II: 1809 en 1784, III: 1658 en 1651, IV: 1374 en 1342, V: c. 784/5 AD). The resulting method and computations allow evaluating the potential limits to design flood magnitudes and inundation cascades in the current situation in the Netherlands and adjacent Germany.

• With Ralph Schielen and Hans Middelkoop, we setup the proposal for this joint Utrecht-Twente project: scientific contents, as well as composition of the user group (which includes Rijkswaterstaat, Deltares, Lievense-CSO, RCE, Waterschap Rivierenland, Waterschap Rijn en IJssel, and Landesamt für Natur, Umwelt und Verbraucherschutz NRW).
• I have been daily-supervisor, co-promotor, and author of the research proposal in the 'Holocene sedimentary flood history of the Lower Rhine' project (PhD project 2009-2013; Postdoc Add-on: 2014-2016), that was the precursor of 'Floods of the past'. The ideas of both these projects go back to a 2006-2007 solicited review report on 'Paleogeography and Flood Safety', published as Rijkswaterstaat-RIZA report.
• I function as the co-promotor and daily supervisor to the UU PhD candidate, as an advisor to the Twente PhD candidate, as a contact with STW (user committee meetings, annual progress reports).
• Earlier, with Willem Toonen (scientific advisor to Floods of the Past) and Henk Weerts (RCE, user representative to Floods of the Past) as co-authors, I produced a review report for RCE Cultural Heritage Agency, to translate the physical geographical research results regarding floods, to recommendations for current archeological research and heritage management in the Rhine delta - pointing to critical use aiming at cross-validation and improvement of event-dating.
• I am a member of the scientific advisory board of the Hydrological Extreme events (HEX) and of the Fluvial archives and catchment systems modeling (FACSIMILE)  working groups from this line of research (spawned from the INQUA-TERPRO: Global Continental Paleohydrology and Fluvial Archives groups, (GLOCOPH, FLAG).
• With PhD candidate Bas van der Meulen (harvesting floodmarks as by-products in archeological site documentation)  I am applying these strategies in this project. With PhD candidate Marieke van Dinter (Utrecht Rhine river system in Roman and Medieval times), Harm Jan Pierik ( Rhine delta in the period 500 BC - 1100 AD ), and with prof. Esther Jansma (dendro-palaeohydrology and -chronology), I am applying these strategies in other current projects. 

• prof. dr. Hans Middelkoop

• Prof. S. Hulscher - Universiteit Twente
• Dr. R. Schielen - Universiteit Twente
• ir. A. Bomers - Universiteit Twente

The growing population and booming economy in deltas, often occurring in mega-cities, will increasingly tax existing groundwater reserves, notably through excessive groundwater abstraction and urbanisation that results in the sealing of aquifers to groundwater recharge. As deltas are already under threat by climate change and sea-level rise, the confounding effects of these stressors will most likely lead to enhanced depletion and salinisation of fresh groundwater resources. At the same time, groundwater reserves are key to solving the problem of future water scarcity in deltas under a growing climate- and socio-economic change. Until our technologies are advanced enough to increase supply (using water of lesser quality) or reduce demand, fresh groundwater will be of vital importance to economic (agricultural and industrial) development in many countries. Here will we apply a combination of state-of-the-art models of surface water hydrology and variable-density groundwater flow to estimate the current fresh groundwater reserves and distributions in 40 major deltas around the world as well as their projected trends under climate- and socio-economic change. This novel approach includes the detailed palaeo-hydrogeological modelling of four deltas in combination with assessing the main factors explaining the fresh-salt groundwater distribution in deltas and mapping these factors worldwide. Using this setup, we will greatly increase understanding of salinisation processes in deltas and contribute to better coastal groundwater management. We will also analyse the effectiveness of possible mitigating measures (such as reducing groundwater abstraction, implementing aquifer storage and recovery) to safeguard or even increase fresh groundwater reserves in the near future.

• dr. ir. Gualbert Oude Essink

• Joost Delsman; Marta Faneca Sanchez

The research aims to develop a generic method to characterise, map in space and time, and digitally share the physical properties of Holocene peaty deposits present in the Rhine-Meuse delta in the Netherlands. The research builds on earlier projects carried out in the Delta Evolution umbrella research programme in which UU, TNO and Deltares take part, and the '4D geomodelling' project at TNO Geological Survey of the Netherlands.

The 3D approach to mapping the compacted, varying natural successions of peat in the range of organo-clastic sedimentary environments that the Rhine-Meuse delta and adjacent coastal plain hosts, serves to increase our understanding of lowland landscape evolution in larger deltas during transgression and high stand situations, and human cultivation effects in such areas. This provides fundamental insights regarding the functioning of drowning deltas and resulting deposition. This serves mapping the subsurface of deltas (for water and subsidence management), using subrecent deltas as analogues in reservoir geology (for hydrocarbon exploitation) and using deltas for agriculture and as urban areas. To be able to confidently hindcast age and compaction history at any location in the Dutch delta as a 3D-mapped attributes will offer geo-engineers, delta-geologists and archaeologists important new a-priori assessment opportunities (prospection, site-selection, risk-analysis). Knowledge of human impact on peat properties as accumulated so far answers economic/societally-relevant questions regarding the CO₂ budgets, safety against flooding and food security in the present and nearby future.

Project roles:

• I wrote the proposal for this project and function as the daily supervisor of the PhD candidate recruited for the project.
• Earlier, I developed a 3D-method for Holcoene paleogroundwatertable reconstruction (Cohen, 2005) that we want to expand and implement in the Geological Survey 3D-mapping as part of this project. In 2016, the paper on this part of the research appeared in Basin Research (Koster et al. 2016: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bre.12202 )
• Earlier, I developed a GIS based palaeogeographical reconstruction system (Berendsen et al., 2001; 2007; Berendsen & Stouthamer, 2000; 2001; Cohen & Stouthamer, 2012; Cohen et al., 2012: http://dx.doi.org/10.17026/dans-x7g-sjtw) that stores the age of channel belts and clay layers connected to it, of which also the age-information is to be implented in the Geological Survey 3D-mapping as part of this project.
• With Esther Stouthamer we maintain a database of 14C datings (same refs as above) that are relevant for the sedimentary elements of the Rhine-Meuse delta, which is important raw data input in the project.

• prof. dr. Esther Stouthamer
• prof. dr. Hans Middelkoop

• dr. Jan Stafleu (TNO - Geologische Dienst van Nederland)
• dr. Freek S. Busschers (TNO - Geologische Dienst van Nederland)

This research programme focuses on a period of severe pan-European economic and demographic change: the Late Roman Period (AD 300-500) and Early Middle Ages (AD 500- 1000). Physical-geographical and biogeological data point at marked climatic variability and changing landscapes during this time interval. In geomorphologically sensitive regions such as river deltas and coastal areas these changes must have had a noticeable impact on the location and lay-out of urban centres and rural settlements, land use and subsistence strategies, and connections of population centres to their economical ‘hinterland’. Recent developments in digital infrastructure in the Humanities and Geosciences in the Netherlands for the first time enable us to study these phenomena from an interregional and interdisciplinary perspective.

We study how settlement dynamics, land use, infrastructure, demography and trade between AD 300 and 1000 were related to changes of the landscape and climate, focusing on the Lowlands’ geomorphologically most sensitive regions. This reconstruction takes place within three complementary PhD-projects, in the realms of archaeology, physical geography and biogeology. Project A focuses on occupation patterns and land use in coastal, river and Pleistocene sandy regions, project B on natural geomorphologic landscape dynamics in these regions, and project C on vegetation changes and climate.

Results will be synthesized in an interdisciplinary reconstruction of the interactions between cultural and environmental dynamics in the Lowlands between AD 300 and 1000 in a broader northwest-European context. The study will greatly improve the archaeological understanding of dynamics in the Early Medieval Lowlands and strongly enhance the framework for future research of this key period.

In my roles as advisor and contributing researcher in the Dark Ages project, I aim to seek maximum synergy with the other activities in 'Rhine-Meuse delta studies'/ 'Delta Evolution' theme, notably:

• Geological-geomorphological mapping of the Rhine-Meuse delta and Netherlands' coastal plain: channel belt ages, history of the river network.
• Reconstructions of Holocene sea-level change, groundwater rise, accommodation space and peat growth (with TNO).
• Geographical effects of increased loads of suspended sediment in Rhine and Meuse in the youngest 3000 years.
• History, sedimentology and event-stratigraphy of larger river floods in the Rhine-Meuse delta (with Deltares)
  see the research projects 'Holocene flood record of the Lower Rhine' and 'Floods of the past - Design for tomorrow'.
• Applied age-mapping within the Holocene of the Netherlands: geohydrological mapping, archaeological predictive maps (with Deltares and TNO).

This contributes to high-quality new mappings of the Netherlands coastal plain and river delta (series of papers by HJ Pierik et al. 2016-201X), expanding and improving GIS-based approaches originally developed for fluvial channel belt network research, (Berendsen et al., 2001; 2007; Cohen et al. 2012) to natural levees and residual channel surface morphology, and to the architecture of vast tidal-inlet dominated sectors of coastal plain (tidal channel incisional bodies; intertidal and supratidal cover). In turn, these maps serve analysis of human impact on landscape and vice versa  in all three subprojects of the darkages project (http://darkagesproject.com/)

• prof. dr. Hans Middelkoop
• dr. Wim Hoek
• drs. Marjolein Gouw-Bouman
• prof. dr. Esther Stouthamer

• Prof. dr. ir. Theo Spek - University of Groningen
• Dr. Bert Groenewoudt - Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands
• Drs. Menne Kosian - Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands

The aim of this project is to characterize deposits, of Holocene (10,000-0 yr BP) and Eemian age (130,000-115,000 yr BP), that were originally formed in near-coastal areas. The main objectives are: (1) sedimentological and architectural characterisation of near-coastal areas, (2) determination of the preservation potential of Eemian deposits relative to Holocene deposits, (3) translation of process relationships and deposit characteristics of a Holocene near-coastal setting to an Eemian near-coastal setting, and 4) determination of sequence stratigraphic and reservoir modelling implications. In this project we use the huge datasets available at UtrechtUniversity and TNO to characterize the architecture of the near-coastal deposits from the modern (Holocene) and last-interglacial (Eemian) high stand coastal barrier-lagoon-deltaic plain system at the mouth of the River Rhine in the southern North SeaBasin. Cores, core descriptions, well logs, and seismic sections are used to characterize the Holocene and Eemian deposits. 

• prof. dr. Hans Middelkoop
• prof. dr. Esther Stouthamer

• dr. Jan Peeters - Alumnus UU
• dr. Freek Busschers - TNO Geological Survey of the Netherlands
• dr. Allard Martinius - Statoil

Severe floods caused extensive damage and life-loss throughout Europe over the last decades. The magnitude and the short recurrence interval between large events in several river systems, have raised questions about the actual safety standards for flood protection. In The Netherlands it was reason to raise the 1,250-yr design flood for river dikes in the Netherlands (Waterwet, 2009) from 15,000 to ~16,000 m3/s. A major problem in coupling magnitudes of observed floods to a statistical recurrence time interval, is the uncertainty in recurrence that originates from limited number of actually observed-and-measured large floods: a 110-year interval of discharge data can be presumed to poorly represent the distribution of extremes through time. Non-stationarity of the flooding regime further complicates the use of short discharge records for flood frequency analysis, as it is not expected that the distribution and magnitudes of floods is fixed in time. During the Holocene, climate variability and growing human influence have exerted perturbations to the fluvial system, which translates to gradual changes in flood probabilities.

In this research, we unlocked information on historic and prehistoric floods, by harvesting information from sedimentary records from oxbow lake fills of the Lower Rhine, through detailed continuous grainsize analysis on the irregularly lamintated deeper lake-fill facies (laboratory effort at Utrecht University and VU Amsterdam). With this data, we could extend the more commonly used observational records on Rhine floods (Lobith discharge measurements back to 1901, water level measurements back to 1772). We produced (PhD thesis dataset and peer-reviewed papers): quantitative discharge reconstructions back to 1772 (assessment of water level readings); sediment-based peak-discharge magnitude reconstructions back to 1550 (from the Bienener Alt-Rhein oxbow fill), and millenia-long continous sedimentary flood-event occurence and intensity records from a stack of oxbow fills (sampled in the Rhine upper delta/lower valley in the Netherlands/Germany), resolving each 1/25 year flood back to 500 AD and each 1/100 year flood back to 8200 years ago. Besides in Rhine river management (flood safety assesment, design of dikes and river bed), the results find application in archaeology (Postdoc add-on: event-registration in medieval river cities, taphonomy of Roman Limes sites), river process-geomorphology (stability of bifurcations, success and failure of avulsions) and Rhine floodplain geological mapping (event-stratigraphy, palaeomeander preservation 'half life').

The project Floods of the past - Design for tomorrow (Utrecht University and Twente University, funded by NWO-STW Water2015 call), the NWO-ALW Rubicon  personal grant to Dr. Willem Toonen (Oct 2014 - March 2017 at Aberystwyth University, Wales UK), and Sedimentary flood history research for the Lower Meuse valley at VU Amsterdam (Fei Peng MSc on a Chinese national grant, supervision Dr. M. Prins et al.) are follow ups to this project. The results are also used within our 'Dark Ages in an interdisciplinary light' project (Utrecht University).

• I wrote the original proposal for this project (in 2006-2007 as the outcome of a solicted review report on Paleogeography and Flood Safety, published as Rijkswaterstaat-RIZA report) and functioned as the daily supervisor of the PhD candidate recruited for the project (as part of the UU-Deltares-TNO Delta Evolution cooperation  and programme).
• Earlier, I developed a GIS based palaeogeographical reconstruction system (Berendsen et al., 2001; 2007; Berendsen & Stouthamer, 2000; 2001; Cohen & Stouthamer, 2012; Cohen et al., 2012: http://dx.doi.org/10.17026/dans-x7g-sjtw) that stores the age of channel belts and paleomeanders, of which the age-information was an important starting point to the project.
• With colleagues Wim Hoek, Esther Stouthamer, assistants and students, we did mapping campaigns in the upstream part of the Rhine-delta and updated applied geomorphological maps (Cohen et al., 2009: Zand in Banen 3rd edition) and borehole databases (Berendsen et al., 2001; 2007). Mapping of depth to sand and thereby identifying the locations of buried channel fills was an important starting point to the project.

• With colleagues Esther Stouthamer, we maintain a database of 14C datings (same refs as above) that are relevant for the sedimentary elements of the Rhine-Meuse delta, which was important raw data input in the project, and with the results of this project hasbeen updated (internally, scheduled for public release in 2017).
• With colleagues Stijn Arnoldussen (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), Gilles Erkens (Deltares), Y.T. van Popta and Laura Taal we produced a landscape age map and derived timeseries of preserved landscape and archeologically predicted value for the embanked floodplains, incorporating the oxbow-infill age-results (Cohen et al. 2014: http://dx.doi.org/10.17026/dans-zbt-xcck).

• With Willem Toonen and Henk Weerts as co-authors, I produced a review report for RCE Cultural Heritage Agency, to translate the physical geographical research results regarding floods, to recommendations for current archeological research and heritage management in the Rhine delta - pointing to critical use aiming at cross-validation and improvement of event-dating.
• With PhD candidates Marieke van Dinter (Utrecht Rhine river system in Roman and Medieval times), Harm Jan Pierik ( Rhine delta in the period 500 BC - 1100 AD ), Bas van der Meulen (harvesting floodmarks as by-products in archeological site documentation) and with prof. Esther Jansma (dendro-palaeohydrology and -chronology), I am applying these strategies in current projects. 

• prof. dr. Hans Middelkoop
• dr. Ad van der Spek
• dr. Wim Hoek

• Dr. Maarten Prins - Grainsize lab Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
• Dr. H.J.T. Weerts - RCE Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands

Delta Evolution is the label we use since 2005, for the Utrecht University research line in Lowland Geomorphology and Quaternary Geology, carried out by the Department of Physical Geography, in cooperation with other institutes. Delta Evolution is also the label put on the strategic research cooperation (since 2008) of the group with departments in Deltares Research Institute and TNO Geological Survey of the Netherlands, that have their offices on the Utrecht science campus too. The Delta Evolution program also connects to the network of alumni of Physical Geographers and Quaternary Geologists active in commercial consultancy companies and governmental agencies in the field of water management, hydrology, civil engineering, nature conservation and archaeology in The Netherlands and to colleagues at other universities - with whom we collaborate in shared projects. Our research and networks extend to deltas internationally - see the pages of the Future Deltas focus area for example. 

The Netherlands and the Rhine-Meuse delta in it are strongholds for our research. Our scientific research treats this delta as the mega-case, to draw smaller cases from - and to compare with other delta systems (other mega-cases) to test and validate what part of our insights are delta-specific and what is generic. The lowlands that the program focuses on include: delta plains, coastal plains, larger river valleys, peat wetlands, lagoon and fenlands and so on. These areas connect to upstream catchments and coastal marine systems downstream. Besides holding sedimentary and geomorphic record of their dynamic formation (lowland genesis, natural and human impacts thereon), the lowlands are also archives that recorded change of the upstream catchment (size of floods and amounts of sediment received), the coastal system (transgression, tides, barrier coasts, storms), the climate system (storms, precipitation, temperature), the biological system (vegetation and fauna, aquatic, riparian, terrestrial), the deeper earth (neoteconics, glaciohydro-isostasy), and archeological history (finds, sites, use of landscape). This feeds interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research. Also, the better the build-up, making-of and age of the lowlands is understood (data integration, synthesis), the better the archives and science based on becomes (duplication, cross-validation, stacking). This is a main reason to carry-over mapping and dating knowledge from individual projects to Delta Evolution's living datasets, that in turn feed into new projects.

Delta Evolution as an umbrella programma, bundles series of PhD/Postdoc projects and contract-research projects and includes long-term dataset management from and between these projects. Goals in Delta Evolution at present are:

1. Perform novel scientific research in Geomorphology and Quaternary Geology of lowland areas,

• by using and expanding the present datasets (already huge and of high quality) and knowledge (from several disciplines), 
• by exploring the limits of our process-understanding and innovate the techniques of modelling geomorphology to cover longer timescales (1000-100,000 years), 
• by pushing the resolution and accuracy of our mapping and dating, and innovate the techniques that combine these (GIS palaeogeography, 3D/4D geomodelling),
• by striving to time-slice the evolution of deltas and quantify rates of morphological, sedimentary and hydrological change as they were changing over time (thus documenting shifts in controls)
• by addressing research questions on the delta system at nested spatial, temporal and functional scales (whole delta, individual branches and swamps, fluvial vs. tidal affected reaches, human-impacted, semi-natural, natural parts of the system's suites of environments and processes; transgressive vs high-stand periods).
• by combining new-collected data from field- and lab work with existing data, statistical analysis and physical numerical modelling.

2.  Synchronize the academic delta research with applied research activities

• by valorizing new scientific insights early on in national mapping projects and geological/geotechnical/geohydrological advice.
• by making early use of data-collection opportunities arising from larger infrastructural projects in the Netherlands delta, in academic research.
• by topping up scientific research with contract-research and vice-versa: have exchange of input data, syncing the interpretation, and reviewing the data output.
• by releasing high-quality data-sets and update these from time to time: take-in, monitoring and review of applied and academic research results from 3rd parties.
• by taking up advisory roles, if possible in early stages, in projects that demand geological-geomorphological  information for plannig and decision making.
• by connecting the Delta Evolution research output to internationally actual themes such as: global change, sustainability, climate change, sea-level change and land subsidence, delta urbanisation, environmental pressure, groundwater demand, hydrocarbon demand, ecological demand, interdisciplinarity science demand. See the pages of the Future Deltas focus area for examples. 

• prof. dr. Esther Stouthamer
• prof. dr. Hans Middelkoop
• dr. Wim Hoek
• dr. Gilles Erkens
• dr. Tim Winkels
• prof. dr. Maarten Kleinhans
• drs. Marjolein Gouw-Bouman
• dr. Ad van der Spek
• dr. Marcel van der Perk
• dr. Teun van Woerkom MSc
• Bas Knaake MSc
• J.I.M. (Jelle) Moree MSc

• Deltares
• TNO Geologische Dienst Nederland
• Rijksdienst Cultureel Erfgoed
• VU Amsterdam