Ecohydrological study for a healthy Roosterbeek
An in-depth study of the entire water system in the Roosterbeek Valley is expected to lead to sustainable solutions for this ecologically extremely valuable area.
The Roosterbeek Valley connects the unique Central Limburg ‘de Wijers’ water landscape (the ‘Land of 1,001 Ponds’) with a number of more eastern nature reserves such as the Teut and Tenhaagdoornheide. While the whole area is thus ecologically very valuable, the vulnerable ecosystems are threatened by hydrological problems, for instance periods of drought as well as floods, and excessive wastewater discharges from the Houthalen-Oost and Zonhoven municipalities.
Integral study
To come up with sustainable solutions reconciling the needs of the various players (watercourse managers, WWTPs, nature reserve managers, fish farmers, etc.), the Province of Limburg commissioned an integral ecohydrological study (a partnership between Aquafin, the Nature and Forest Agency and the Flanders Environment Agency). In this study, the entire water system of sewers, streams and ponds is being measured from a water quantity, water quality and ecological point of view. The study began in 2020 and is set to run until 2024.
Main project phases:
- Installing a network for monitoring the various subsystems (sewers, watercourses) of the whole system for a full year (2021)
- Building and validating a coupled hydraulic sewer and river model
- Building and validating a river quality model
- Analysing existing bottlenecks and formulating climate-robust solutions to eliminate them
- Developing draft designs for some of the proposed solutions to be implemented in the short term.
Role of R&D
Within Aquafin, the study is globally coordinated by Plan W, the department responsible for gathering hydraulic knowledge about the area. R&D provides specific support for, inter alia, the development of the sewer monitoring network (quality and quantity), the validation and interlinkage of the hydraulic models and the calculation of quantities discharged from overflows and WWTPs.
