Piet H. Nienhuis

• Professor emeritus PhD
• Head of Department at Radboud University

Op 25 december 2017 is het driehonderd jaar geleden dat de Kerstvloed Noord-Nederland en Noord-Duitsland teisterde. In de kerstnacht van 1717 en de dagen daarna zijn meer dan 13.000 mensen verdronken, van wie ongeveer 2.300 alleen al in de Groninger Ommelanden en het Oldambt. Tienduizenden stuks vee kwamen om en de materiële schade was onvoorstelba...

This chapter discusses a range of concepts and methods for analysing ‘the natural environment’, here considered as the physical, chemical and biological (i.e. living and non-living) environment and as the ‘resource base’ of human society, to which it thus bears a reciprocal relationship (Boersema et al. 1991: 22). This defi nition does not include...

The Natural Environment Piet H. Nienhuis, with contributions of Egbert Boeker This chapter discusses a range of concepts and methods for analyzing 'the natural environment', here considered as the physical, chemical and biological (i.e. living and non-living) environment and as the 'resource base' of human society, to which it thus bears a recipro...

An ecological story on evolving human–environmental relations coping with climate change and sea-level rise

In this chapter a number of birds and mammals will be discussed that have an ecological connection with river habitats, mainly to demonstrate the subjective way of treating these animals as ‘harmful’ or ‘useful’ in the course of the history of the Delta. Notwithstanding the focus on wetland species, the choice remains arbitrary, mainly based on pub...

In the traditional agricultural society of the Delta the new technological progress got under way relatively late. Developments in river management in the 19th century were a continuation of a strategy that had inspired and stimulated the inhabitants of the Delta for millennia: the use, maintenance and improvement of their waterways as economic art...

Human impact through the ages has greatly changed the composition of the fish fauna in the Delta, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Systematic embankment of the Large Rivers was nearly accomplished in the late Middle Ages. However, up to the 18th century, the main channels were meandering and many river islands, floodplain forests and snag hab...

The environmental history of the Rhine–Meuse Delta is basically the story of the settlers in the Delta, the draining and exploitation of peat, the cultivation of the raised bogs and the reclamation of fertile river polders, surrounded by dykes followed by technical achievements in river management. Inventions like the windmill technology opened up...

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the invasions of exotic biota to the Rhine–Meuse Delta. Invasions of non-native plants and animals to and from western Europe have occurred from prehistoric times onwards, and consequently drastic restrictions in the framework of this chapter are necessary. The focus is on recent (19th and 20th c...

The aim of this chapter is to focus on the river landscape of the Rhine–Meuse Delta in the later Middle Ages, the period from 800 to approximately 1500. Realistic and reliable data on river ‘ecology’ (the concept did not exist) are not available. The only way to be informed about the changes in the river landscape is the indirect way. Relevant info...

A significant change in the Rhine–Meuse Delta is the substantial reduction in the longitudinal connectivity, and connected habitat diversity. The dams built to protect the hinterland against flooding, deprived the areas of their estuarine gradients. Large weirs in the rivers proper, and massive seawalls closing off the estuaries, have drastically a...

The flooding disaster of 1953 induced the Delta Plan. Under the motto ‘this never again’ (1,835 human casualties; uncountable damage to human goods and chattels) the inlets of the estuaries in the southwestern Netherlands had to be closed by massive sea walls. The Delta Act was already implemented in 1957, and the estuaries were closed, one by one...

Over the centuries Father Rhine, the great European river draining into the North Sea, has inspired many writers, poets, painters and the like (e.g. Schmidt et al., 1995). The river Rhine has also stimulated many scientists to the writing of detailed surveys of the geography and biology of the river basin, comprising the physical, chemical and ecol...

This synthesis will present a blueprint for future water management and restoration of the Delta: from progressive reclamation of land in the past, to adaptation of human needs to the inevitable forces of nature. Our main focus is on evolving human–environmental relations coping with climate change and sea-level rise. Prehistoric and historic ecolo...

The aim of this chapter is to give a brief review of the hydrology, water quality, pollution history and consequent rehabilitation and of the rivers Rhine and Meuse in the Delta, as far as these items are not covered in Chapters 12 and 13. Despite extensive literature surveys on the ecology of river biota (e.g. by Admiraal et al., 1993; Van de Brin...

Water levels in the river Meuse are more or less permanently controlled by weirs, in order to make the river navigable. There is a marked contrast between the Delta branches of the Meuse and the Rhine. The Rhine branches are embanked along their entire length, whereas only the lower stretches of the Meuse downstream of Mook/Boxmeer have dykes. Behi...

The aim of this chapter is to give a concise review of river fisheries through the ages in the Delta. The past and present status of a number of anadromous fish species in the Delta water will be discussed: sturgeon, eel, allis shad, twaite shad, smelt, some coregonids, sea trout and salmon. Nowadays, most of these species are rare or endangered, a...

Biodiversity is a framework concept, referring to the variety of life on Earth, and in this sense the concept is neither measurable nor quantifiable. However, specific features of biodiversity, e.g. species richness of taxonomic groups can be quantified. Circa 2% of the total number of identified species on Earth, roughly 35,000 species of plants a...

The history of ‘floods and flood protection’ in the Delta is a story of great misery and at the same time great prosperity, the story of the self-created ‘enemy’, storm floods from the west and river floods from the east, that had to be ‘fought’ with ever-improved technological means: ever-higher and ever-stronger sea walls and river dykes. But the...

This chapter contains condensed stories. The story of the making of the Delta, originally instigated by the use of muscular strength and wind and water power, in the later Middle Ages progressed by technical achievements, the wind-watermill, and from 1800 to 2000 accelerated and scaled up by steam power and electricity. The story of the rising sea...

The history of the green Delta is the litany of the production of food, feed and fuel as the bare necessities of life. In this chapter the history of agriculture and the use of wood and timber will be treated. In contrast with the lack of documented information on the history of the natural environment (the subject of this book), a tremendous amoun...

An attempt to describe the environmental aspects of the prehistory and early history of the lowland rivers Rhine and Meuse is a confrontation with a poignant lack of information. How little do we know from that period? The most reliable records come from geological, palaeogeographical and palynological research, and from scanty archaeological excav...

The geographical features of a low population density, large stretches of ‘wilderness’, a mobile ‘frontier’ and a strong tradition of the ‘outdoors’, have all been significant for the reception and growth of environmental history in North America. This is also perhaps true of other regions where environmental history has gained a foothold: Australa...

This chapter covers the period 1500–1800, characterised by technical achievements in water management, and ending at the advent of the industrial revolution. The introduction of technical improvements reached the Delta relatively late, around 1850, compared to England, where the invention of the steam engine around 1770 in fact heralded a new era....

The aim of this chapter is to give a survey of the environmental history of a number of brook systems in the Delta. The chapter will not focus on changes in plant an animal life (see Chapters 7, 14, 15, 17, 18 and 19), but changes in landscape structure and functioning will get ample attention. Characteristics of the brooks debouching on the river...

This paper examines the relationship between protected and endangered riverine species (target species) and hydrodynamics in river-floodplain ecosystems, combining ecological and policy-legal aspects of biodiversity conservation in river management. The importance of different hydrodynamic conditions along a lateral gradient was quantified for vari...

During the design and the execution of the Delta project, carried out after the storm flood of 1953 in the SW Netherlands, the importance of the long-term effects of morphological and ecological developments driven by tides and currents, have been underestimated. Due to these processes the height of the dams will have to be increased for centuries...

Over the past 50years ecology has developed into a mature branch of the natural sciences, comprising firm concepts (e.g. for rivers River Continuum Concept and Flood Pulse Concept) and extensive empirical surveys (sophisticated lab and field experiments, simulation models, GIS). Estuaries and rivers are continuously threatened ecosystems, consideri...

Large-scale reconstruction measures are being prepared and implemented in river basins of northwestern Europe for the purpose of flood defence, ecological rehabilitation and infrastructural improvements. These measures will have far-reaching consequences for the physical structure, hydrodynamics, and hence for the ecological functioning and biodive...

This study evaluates the effects of ecological rehabilitation on biodiversity in floodplains along lowland rivers in the Netherlands, using two different approaches. Species richness was compared with a policy and legislation based index, calculated by means of BIO-SAFE. BIO-SAFE is a valuation model that incorporates only protected and endangered...

Assessing actual and potential biodiversity of river–floodplain ecosystems on the basis of policy and legislation concerning endangered and protected species is necessary for consistency between different policy goals. It is thus a prerequisite to sustainable and integrated river management. This paper presents BIO‐SAFE, a transnational model that...

This study investigated the relation between vegetation reflectance and elevated concentrations of the metals Ni, Cd, Cu, Zn and Pb in river floodplain soils. High-resolution vegetation reflectance spectra in the visible to near-infrared (400-1350 nm) were obtained using a field radiometer. The relations were evaluated using simple linear regressio...

Grass-dominated vegetation covers large areas of the Dutch river floodplains. Remotely sensed data on the conditions under which this vegetation grows may yield information about the degree of soil contamination. This paper explores the relationship between grassland canopy reflectance and zinc (Zn) contamination in the soil under semi-field condit...

Grass-dominated vegetation covers large areas of the Dutch river floodplains. Remotely sensed data on the conditions under which this vegetation grows may yield information about the degree of soil contamination. This paper explores the relationship between grassland canopy reflectance and zinc (Zn) contamination in the soil under semi-field condit...

In large European rivers the chemical water quality has improved markedly in recent decades, yet the recovery of the fish fauna is not proceeding accordingly. Important causes are the loss of habitats in the main river channels and their floodplains, and the diminished hydrological connectivity between them. In this study we investigate how river r...

Longitudinal zonation concepts describe the downstream changes in chemico-physical and biological properties of rivers. Including information on ecological fish guilds can enhance the usefulness of fish zonation concepts, in a way that they can be used as tools for assessment and management of the ecological integrity of large rivers. We present an...

Longitudinal zonation concepts describe the downstream changes in chemico-physical and biological properties of rivers. Including information on ecological fish guilds can enhance the usefulness of fish zonation concepts, in a way that they can be used as tools for assessment and management of the ecological integrity of large rivers. We present an...

There has been much controversy over the degree to which mangroves and seagrass beds function as nursery habitats for the juveniles of fish species that live on coral reefs as adults. In previous studies we have shown that the juveniles of at least 17 Caribbean reef-fish species are highly associated with bays containing mangroves and seagrass beds...

Processes leading to biomass variation of Ulva were investigated at two contrasting sites in the eutrophic Veerse Meer (The Netherlands). Ulva species dominated at the Middelplaten site, while at the Kwistenburg site a mixture of Ulva spp. and Chaetomorpha linum dominated. Total summer macroalgal biomass was higher at Middelplaten than at Kwistenbu...

The Netherlands are a small, low-lying delta in W. Europe (42000 km2; 50°–54° N; 3°–8° E), mainly consisting of alluvial deposits from the North Sea and from the large rivers Rhine and Meuse. The country was ‘created by man’. The conversion of natural aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems into drained agricultural land was a major cultural operation o...

In this paper, the status of ecological rehabilitation of the Dutch lowland basin of the river Rhine has been reviewed. The historical perspective, mainly with regard to river regulation measures in the past, is given. The lower river Rhine comprises a man-dominated, strongly regulated catchment, polluted water and sediments, and annihilated and de...

Restoration of regulated rivers presents fundamental challenges because of the complexity and adaptive nature of riverine ecosystems. It is now agreed that restoration strategies need to restore the system as a whole (structure, function and dynamics). Most studies are faced with the same difficulties concerning the right scale for restoration acti...

In 1989, a symposium was held under the title `Netherlands-Wetlands', aiming at the presentation of the state of the art of the existing knowledge of structure and functioning of wetlands, characteristic for the Netherlands. The present multi-author volume can be seen as a logical successor of the results of this symposium. The focus is now fully o...

This work presents the state of the art of aquatic and semi-aquatic ecological restoration projects in The Netherlands. Starting from the conceptual basis of restoration ecology, the successes and failures of hundreds of restoration projects are described. Numerous successful projects are mentioned. In general ecological restoration endeavours grea...

During the past decades, large amounts of diffuse contaminated soil material have been deposited in the floodplains of the river Rhine in the Netherlands. The dynamic character of this river causes a large spatial variability in the contamination level of its floodplain soils. Characterisation of the spatial variability exclusively based on soil sa...

Floodplain soils along the river Rhine in the Netherlands show a large spatial variability in pollutant concentrations. For an accurate ecological risk characterization of the river floodplains, this heterogeneity has to be included into the ecological risk assessment. In this paper a procedure is presented that incorporates spatial components of e...

This paper presents a Spreadsheet Application For Evaluation of BIOdiversity (BIO-SAFE) on the basis of political and legal criteria derived from national and international policy plans, laws, treaties and directives. The BIO-SAFE is developed as a management tool to optimise mutual attuning of nature conservation policies and other interests in sp...

The present paper estimates the annual emissions of eight (heavy) metals and six polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from mine stone applications in hydraulic engineering structures in Dutch river basins over the periods 1980 – 2010. Two leaching models (a diffusion and a percolation model) and three application scenarios (i.e. the stop, curren...

The immense complexity of ecosystems severely hampers the underpinning of the ecological sustainability paradigm. The few existing definitions of ecological sustainability, such as ecosystem health, are based on the obsolete superorganism paradigm of ecosystems, assuming an equilibrium for every ecosystem. New, anthropocentric approaches, like the...

This paper reviews the state of the art of ecological theory in the framework of river management and restoration. The paper focuses not on the classical restoration issues (environmental pollution) but rather on physical disturbance and ecological integrity of ecosystems, thus confronting international ecological theories with Dutch river manageme...

Increasing amounts of various types of wastes and pollutants including nutrients enter the coastal waters via rivers, direct discharges from land drainage systems, diffuse land runoff, dumping and via the atmosphere. This has led to coastal eutrophication and in extreme cases to hypertrophication. Until recently, coastal eutrophication and the resu...

A tentative analysis of the role of the science of ecology in the sustainable development debate is given. The science of ecology can considerably contribute to the underpinning of the concept of sustainable development. For the solution of complicated environmental problems the application of holistic ecological concepts is needed, which means a b...

The wax and wane of the eelgrass (Zostera marina L.) population in Grevelingen lagoon (East Atlantic; The Netherlands) has been documented for over 25 years, together with quantitative and semi-quantitative data on environmental variables. The population expanded after the closure of the Grevelingen estuary in 1971, but declined from 4600 ha surfac...

The Dutch Delta Region (S-W Netherlands) originally consisted of interconnected estuaries, interfacing the rivers Rhine, Meuse and Schelde with the North Sea. The ecosystems were immature, with physical rather than biological control of population dynamics. Main functions were shipping and shellfisheries. An emergent function of the interconnected...

Long-term observations in an enclosed estuarine branch in The Netherlands showed a remarkably strong correlation between water column levels of dissolved silicon (DSi) and standing stock of eelgrass Zostera marina. Si levels in the leaves of Z. marina varied between 0.02 and 0.66% of tissue dry weight; they were lower in the declining population th...

Eutrophication is defined here as the process of increasing concentration and load of inorganic nutrients, inducing changes in the aquatic communities. In general terms the large European rivers provide the main source for nutrient enrichments in coastal waters. The main rivers loading the surface waters along the eastern North Sea coasts are, from...

The Mediterranean coastline of Spain is subjected to high human pressure, caused by both permanent and seasonal populations. For a total length of coast of about 2200 km, the population living within 5–10 km of the coast is around 6 million people. In addition, the coastal areas receive about 6 million visitors annually, most of them in summer. The...

Sustainability of Ecosystems: Ecological and Economic Factors

Increasing amounts of various types of wastes and pollutants including nutrients enter the coastal waters via rivers, direct discharges from land drainage systems, diffuse land runoff, dumping and via the atmosphere. This has led to coastal eutrophication and in extreme cases to hypertrophication. Until recently, coastal eutrophication and the resu...

Very early diagenetic processes of free, esterified and amide or glycosidically bound fatty acids and hydroxy fatty acids present in well documented samples of living and decomposing eelgrass (Zostera marina L.) were investigated. Free and esterified fatty acids decreased significantly over a period of decay of 12.5 years, although their distributi...

The epiphytic diatom assemblages on the seagrasses Enhalus acoroides (L.f) Royle and Thalassia hemprichii (Ehr.) Ascherson were studied in an estuarine sandy mudflat and a coral reef-flat habitat in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. A comparison was made with the diatom flora developing on inert substrata (suspended microscope slides) and the sediment flo...