Prioritising €18M of annual dredging on trend, not schedule
Rijnmond dredges continuously. The question was never whether to dredge but where the sediment had actually gone since the last survey.
The challenge
The authority maintains declared depths across 41 berths and 62 km of channel. Hydrographic survey coverage was necessarily partial between campaigns, so dredging was planned on a rolling schedule with a safety margin, which meant dredging some areas that did not need it and occasionally being surprised by ones that did.
What we did
TIDEWATCH Port provides continuous satellite-derived bathymetry trending across the whole estate, explicitly as a planning layer rather than a navigation product. Areas showing accelerating shoaling are flagged for priority hydrographic survey, and the survey vessel is then dispatched with a hypothesis.
Results
- Dredging campaigns re-prioritised quarterly on observed trend
- Hydrographic survey effort concentrated on areas of actual change
- Berth occupancy and dwell time reporting delivered as a by-product
- Supplier of the Year — Analytics, Rijnmond Port Authority, 2024
It does not replace the survey. It tells the survey where to go.
Head of Nautical Services, Rijnmond Port Authority