The Pilot Sand Engine Delfland is a man-made 2 km long sandy peninsula built to feed the coastal sediment budget between Hook of Holland and Scheveningen, in the Netherlands, for a period of 20 years while promoting nature development, innovation and recreation at the same time. It was built in 2011, involving the placement of 21.5 million m3 of sand. The sand of the Sand Engine is meant to gradually redistribute over the larger coastal system under the combined power of waves, tides and winds, thus feeding a 17 km section of coast in a natural way. The Sand Engine is generally considered a Building with Nature icon.
The Sand Engine project was developed in close concert between the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment Rijkswaterstaat, the Province of South Holland, the Water Board of Delfland, the city councils of the The Hague, Westland and Rotterdam and the Environment Federation South Holland. All the parties involved carry different responsibilities in the project area, but they also have different interests in the development. To enable an integrated project design, explicit project objectives were formalised by means of a so-called Ambition Agreement. It was achieved through the early involvement of all parties with an interest and the clear communication of a broad variety of demands and expectations. This made it possible for the development phase to start with a broad range of objectives agreed by all parties involved.
The main objective of the Sand Engine is to ensure long-term safety of the Delfland coast, while creating space for nature and recreation. The sub-objectives of the Sand Engine are to promote innovation and knowledge development on:
• Natural coastal development in delta regions;
• Proactive strategies for climate-resilient shoreline maintenance; and
• The process of collaboration between different stakeholders in the coastal zone.
The Sand Engine Ambition Agreement was signed in early 2008 (Verkeer en Waterstaat, 2008), well before the start of the EIA studies (2008-2009) and the actual project implementation in 2011. It clearly demonstrates the added value of explicit, early assessment of a wide range of project objectives, by all key stakeholders involved.