Rijkswaterstaat aims every day towards making the Netherlands safe, liveable and accessible. The organisation aims for a country with sufficient green areas, clean water, where everyone can move quickly and safely from A to B, and that is safe from floods. Protection against flooding is and will remain of vital importance. Rijkswaterstaat maintains 2.500 km of dikes, dams, weirs and storm surge barriers to protect the coast.

Part of this maintenance is adding sand to the coast, which Rijkswaterstaat has been doing for many years. This is necessary, because sand erodes from the coastline every day. To maintain the Dutch coastline, ships take the sand from designated sand pits, away from the coast and bring this back to the shore and beaches. Although this routine does its work, the process will become more extensive and complex in the future because of rising sea levels. In addition, Rijkswaterstaat aims to substantially decrease the emissions of greenhouse gasses towards zero in 2030. This means that Rijkswaterstaat is looking for other ways to make this process more sustainable and cost-effective. That’s what this Nederlandse Kustlijn Startup Challenge is all about. 

THE CHALLENGE

Rijkswaterstaat is looking for the latest innovations that can be applied to substantially decrease greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the coastal maintenance activities in a cost effective way. Within the Nederlandse Kustlijn Startup Challenge, however, innovation is not the goal but the means to achieve this ambition.

By 2024 Rijkswaterstaat aims to introduce one or more sustainable solutions, for coastal maintenance that are as cost-effective as possible. These are innovative solutions that can only be achieved with additional research and development, and which are therefore not yet available. These solutions must lead to a significant reduction in greenhouse gases, as Rijkswaterstaat’s ultimate aim is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for regular coastal maintenance towards zero in 2030 by the latest.

SHARE YOUR INNOVATION

Rijkwaterstaat is giving startups the opportunity to come up with new ideas, technologies and applications, and to develop them in partnership. After successful development, Rijkswaterstaat will apply the solution in practice. The focus for these solutions is on those in which sand is added to the Dutch coast. In the long term this enables the coastal protection to grow with sea level rise. Do you think you have the solution to help Rijkswaterstaat achieve its ambitions? Then sign up for the challenge and get the chance to share your innovation with Rijkswaterstaat.