Field measurements of hydrodynamics and sediment transport at intertidal areas in the Dutch Wadden Sea

van Weerdenburg, Roy; Veerman, Thomas; Traas, Meike; Mol, Jan-Willem; van Maren, Bas; Beks, Dannie; van der Vegt, Maarten; van Prooijen, Bram

doi:10.5194/essd-2026-75

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https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-75

Preprints

11 Feb 2026

| 11 Feb 2026

Status: this preprint is currently under review for the journal ESSD.

Field measurements of hydrodynamics and sediment transport at intertidal areas in the Dutch Wadden Sea

Roy van Weerdenburg, Thomas Veerman, Meike Traas, Jan-Willem Mol, Bas van Maren, Dannie Beks, Maarten van der Vegt, and Bram van Prooijen

Abstract. Two field measurement campaigns were carried out in the Dutch Wadden Sea in winter 2023–24 and in early spring 2025. The campaigns were designed to understand and quantify sediment transport and exchange between morphological units at two spatial scales: on larger scale between two adjacent tidal basins and on smaller scale between individual channels and shoals. These observations support ongoing research to better understand sediment dynamics in the Wadden Sea, and thereby to improve sediment management strategies essential for maintaining coastal functions in the Dutch coastal system over short (days–months) to long (decades) timescales.

The resulting dataset contains point measurements at five locations in the first campaign and eight locations in the second campaign, including (1) near-bed flow velocities and velocity profiles, (2) wave characteristics, (3) suspended sediment concentrations and transport rates, and (4) local bed level dynamics, as well as data on the sediment composition of (intertidal) seabed samples. Measurements were collected simultaneously for a period of six to eight weeks in both campaigns, although some instruments collected data for only four weeks in the Winter 2023–24 campaign.

This article documents the field observations and data processing, and highlights potential applications. This dataset may contribute to a better understanding of sediment dynamics in the Dutch Wadden Sea, but also advance our understanding of channel-shoal sediment exchange mechanisms in general. It provides the field data for investigating fundamental processes controlling sediment dynamics in tidal systems, such as tide- and wind-driven flows and transport, shallow water wave dynamics, wave and current-induced resuspension, and sediment bed stability.

The data are publicly available in three versions (raw, filtered and tailored datasets) at 4TU Centre for Research Data at https://doi.org/10.4121/bbb85feb-15f9-476f-9598-b6509392117d (van Weerdenburg et al., 2026).

Received: 28 Jan 2026 – Discussion started: 11 Feb 2026

Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this paper. While Copernicus Publications makes every effort to include appropriate place names, the final responsibility lies with the authors. Views expressed in the text are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.

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Roy van Weerdenburg, Thomas Veerman, Meike Traas, Jan-Willem Mol, Bas van Maren, Dannie Beks, Maarten van der Vegt, and Bram van Prooijen

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RC1:
'Comment on essd-2026-75', Giovanni Scardino, 27 Feb 2026 reply
Thank you for the opportunity to review your manuscript, which presents a new and substantial field dataset from the Dutch Wadden Sea. The paper is well-written and provides a clear and comprehensive overview of the design, execution, and content of the WadSED measurement campaigns. The two-campaign strategy, capturing different seasonal wind conditions, is a strong aspect of the study design. The provision of data at three levels of processing (raw, filtered, tailored) is commendable and will greatly facilitate its reuse by the community. I have one main concern regarding this work: it lacks a scientific ground truth for the data collected during the campaigns. For example, a detailed explanation of how this dataset enables the scientific community to analyze sediment exchange across tidal divides and between channels and shoals—particularly by differentiating the contributions of tides, waves, and currents—would be an important point that deserves to be highlighted in the manuscript.
My general comments are intended to further improve the clarity and utility of the data description.
General Comments
Scope of the Dataset: The paper does a great job describing the what and how. For a data paper, it would also be beneficial to very briefly touch upon the so what in the conclusions. While you provide illustrative examples in Section 6, the concluding remarks (Section 7) are quite general. A sentence or two speculating on the specific new insights this combined dataset might unlock (e.g., quantifying the relative importance of wind vs. tide-driven transport over the divide, or validating numerical models of channel-shoal exchange) would be a powerful way to end the paper and encourage others to use the data.

Clarity of Objectives: The two primary objectives (basin-basin exchange and channel-shoal exchange) are stated clearly. However, the transition between the two campaigns and how they jointly address these objectives could be slightly sharper. For instance, a brief synthesis statement at the end of Section 3.3, explaining how the Spring 2025 campaign complements the Winter 2023-24 campaign (e.g., "While the Winter campaign focused on the spatial variability across the divide, the Spring campaign added a detailed cross-shore transect within a basin to investigate vertical and lateral exchange processes"), would be very helpful for the reader.

Specific Comments
L12-14: These sentence are too generic, the main outcomes in terms of channel-shoal sediment exchange mechanisms should be reported. How the sediments are distributed along the nearshore and in the channels, and which the main driven-mechanism?

L13-15: The statement that the dataset "may contribute to..." and "provides the field data for investigating..." is slightly passive. Consider rephrasing to be more direct, e.g., "This dataset is designed to improve our understanding of..." or "The data enable the investigation of fundamental processes...".

L17-18: The data availability can be moved in the appropriate section, avoiding to insert it within the abstract.

L83-84: Which is absolute values of these channel depths?

L85: It is not so clear, do you mean that sides of tidal inlets are characterized by sandy sediments? While the seaward part is mainly made of mud sediments?

L92: This is the first time that you cited the morphological units. First you must report the morphological units in the section 2 and then you can briefly report them in this section.

L94-96: The description of the different sections should be moved in the first chapter.

L100-105: The practical considerations for site selection are well-stated. It might be worth adding a brief note on any potential drawbacks of the chosen location. For example, is the site influenced by the dredging and disposal activities mentioned in L100? If so, how might that influence the interpretation of "natural" processes for potential users?

L103-108:The difference in seasons between the two campaigns was chosen only for a spatial discrimination (around tidal divide and channel-shoals). Did you also considered the difference of rainfall rates between winter and spring seasons?

L115-116: “and sampling frequency, constrained by instrument battery capacity” So how many days/hours did you consider?

L121: Which is the model of the ADCP?

L130: Define the range of frequencies.

L146 (Storm Pia): It might be worth adding a very brief note on how this extreme event is captured in the data (e.g., "This event provided a unique opportunity to observe sediment transport under extreme conditions, as captured in the high-frequency measurements at stations...").

L181: If you used OBS and ADV you can estimate the actual water density, while the density of the soil can be assessed from the kind of minerals within the collected samples.

L185: Which is the percentage of HCl used?

L219-220: This part is referred to the field observation and should be moved in the previous section.

L291 (Supplementary Data): The phrase "available upon request" is used for the Rijkswaterstaat data. While this is accurate, it is often less preferred than a direct link. If a public portal or a stable request form link exists, please provide it. If not, the current phrasing is acceptable.

Reply
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-75-RC1
- AC1: 'First reply on RC1', Roy van Weerdenburg, 04 Mar 2026 reply
  
  Dear Giovanni Scardino,
  Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript.
  In your general comments, you highlight something we discussed extensively while writing the manuscript: how much of our data analysis results to include here, and how much to reserve for future (more in-depth) publications. From your review, we understand that adding more of our new insights would strengthen the manuscript and could encourage others to use the dataset. As facilitating reuse of the dataset by the wider community is the main reason for submitting this manuscript, we agree that providing some additional insights would better demonstrate its potential. We therefore plan to expand on this in the revised version.
  We plan to prepare a revised version addressing both your general and specific comments once we have received the second review, so that we can respond to all feedback together.
  Thanks again for your helpful review. Best regards, Roy van Weerdenburg
  
  Reply
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-75-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on essd-2026-75', Anonymous Referee #2, 02 Apr 2026 reply
To the authors,
The manuscript describes the outcome of two sediment transport measurement campaigns during rough (winter) and calm-weather (spring) conditions near the barrier islands of Ameland and Terschelling in the Dutch Wadden Sea. The resulting observational data were published in 3 versions, i.e., in a raw, filtered and tailored version. This dataset is valuable and the manuscript worthy of publication. Generally, the manuscript is comprehensive and original. It describes all parts of the campaigns well. It is well-written and structured although the paper would benefit from shortening. I was able to download all data and checked it visually and for completeness/obvious errors.
I have some major comments and minor suggestions. I disclose that I am not an expert on observational devices and their settings.
Sincerely,
Major comments
The introduction focuses heavily on sediment management and frames this dataset as a contribution to this field. In my understanding, sediment management describes the process of artificial sediment relocation or marine construction, e.g., through nourishments. I do not see how these data would be a major contribution to this. I’d suggest to focus the introduction more on the general aspects of understanding complex natural sediment transport patterns across tidal divides which would also result in a welcome shortening of the introduction.

To my knowledge, the measurement devices were introduced reasonably and the process of collecting the observational data was presented well. I am, however, missing information about the uncertainty of the actual devices, their operating window, and potential implications on the presented dataset.

Please elaborate the uncertainty resulting from the conversion of turbidity observations into SSC. Has the device been calibrated for suspended mud or also for suspended sand-mud-mixtures?

Section 6 includes some own analysis that extend beyond describing a dataset. For me, this was helpful to get a better grasp on the data. Still, I have to mention that such analyses do not match the scope of a data descriptor. I’d suggest to remove one example and to rename this section to “potential applications” (or comparable). Then, this section could be merged with your concluding remarks which are currently more of a summary of the paper.

I suggest adjustment in storing your data and in naming to concur better with the scientific standards for netcdf (CF-conventions):
The download is quite large and takes a while. As a user, I’d like to collect “raw”, “processed”, and “tailored” as separate downloads.

I do not understand why there is such a difference in file size between the zipped and unzipped netcdf files. In theory, I’d expect the netcdf files themselves to be compressed – has this been considered instead of zipping?

It is inefficient to make one file for each station during each campaign, I’d prefer to download the variant, e.g., “processed”, of all stations of one campaign, e.g., A1-A5, in one file. This’d reduce unnecessary overlap and make your dataset much easier to work with.

The files themselves have no coordinate variables. Instead, the station coordinates are stored in the global attributes. This works, but I find it unintuitive. A common NetCDF (following UGRID standards) file would use separate variables for coordinates (z, z_bounds, projected and lon/lat) and refer to these coordinates in the variable’s attributes.

The variables of your files would benefit from including a CF-convention standard_name.

Minor: The global attribute for your mail address has a typo. Consider using a more general mail-address that will remain valid for a long time. Also, I like to include the ORCID of the responsible person to ensure reachability.

Minor suggestions
The authors denote that their campaigns capture different periods to capture calm and rough weather with the goal of providing insights into the sediment exchange between tidal basins. I find that a summer period is a significant gap in the dataset as both chosen periods are poor in vegetation and are characterized by cold water temperatures. Please include a statement to this limitation.

L4: … sediment dynamics on a tidal divide in the Dutch Wadden Sea …

L7: The presented dataset…

L4-6 and L12-16 basically mean the same thing. I’d suggest to remove L4-6.

L24: You mean efficient sediment management?

L56: … above-mentioned campaigns already …

L67: Reserve project names for the acknowledgements

L82: I am very sure that these papers are not in prep anymore.

L87ff: I do not agree that the Dutch Wadden Sea imported more sediment than required. If anything, sediment import has increased due to land reclamation and the closure of the Zuiderzee. Also, the Dutch Wadden Sea currently accretes too little to cope with SLR (see Pineda Leiva, et al., 2025 for reference 10.1038/s43247-025-02340-y). Also, what do you understand as extensive dredging? Please quantify.

L92: I am unsure if the term “morphological units” is broadly understood. You could also consider defining tidal divides.

F3: I assume the axes refer to %? Please label the axes.

F3: It looks like wind speeds >20 m/s were rarely reached. Re-allocating your bins in the diagram would add much more information to the reader.

L146: Add numbers to the exceptionally high water level

L167: Introduce the abbreviation “NAP”

T3: %OM and %CaCO3 are N/A for A2 to A4. Please elaborate.

L290: Specify if these data are open or disclosed data.

L291: Specify how these SSC were sampled (calibrated turbidity sensors or water samples?)

L294: The online form of RWS is mentioned for the second time here.

F11, F12: Please use color-deficiency compliable colormaps such as cmocean or cmcrameri.

L335: Remove extensive

Reply
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-75-RC2

Roy van Weerdenburg, Thomas Veerman, Meike Traas, Jan-Willem Mol, Bas van Maren, Dannie Beks, Maarten van der Vegt, and Bram van Prooijen

Data sets

WadSED field measurements, data underlying the publication: Field measurements of hydrodynamics and sediment transport at intertidal areas in the Dutch Wadden Sea Roy van Weerdenburg , Thomas Veerman, Meike Traas, Jan-Willem Mol, Bas van Maren, Dannie Beks, Maarten van der Vegt, Bram van Prooijen https://doi.org/10.4121/bbb85feb-15f9-476f-9598-b6509392117d.v3

Roy van Weerdenburg, Thomas Veerman, Meike Traas, Jan-Willem Mol, Bas van Maren, Dannie Beks, Maarten van der Vegt, and Bram van Prooijen

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Short summary

Two field measurement campaigns in the Dutch Wadden Sea captured how sand and mud move between deep channels and shallow tidal flats. Seabed-mounted frames equipped with multiple instruments recorded water levels, flow velocities, waves, and amounts of sand and mud in the water column and seabed. The resulting dataset helps reveal the processes that control sediment dynamics and the evolution of seabed morphology in tidal coastal systems.


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