DEVELOPING AN EFFICIENT MODELLING FRAMEWORK TO EVALUATE NATURE- BASED SOLUTIONS TO COUNTERACT ESTUARINE SALT INTRUSION

Estuaries connect our rivers and oceans, and support densely populated regions worldwide. These estuaries are increasingly threatened by salt intrusion due to climate change and side effects of human interventions, limiting freshwater availability. Nature-based solutions (NBSs), e.g. sand waves or wetlands, show potential to increase mixing of fresh- and salt water and have shown to be adaptable to a changing climate. Hence, they may provide a resilient way to reduce salt intrusion, while also supporting important ecosystem services. An efficient modelling framework will be developed, that is able to evaluate NBSs to counteract salt intrusion, estuarine wide, including CC. It will be applied to establish a knowledge base around the interactions between estuarine ecomorphology, related to NBSs, and salt intrusion. This way, the proposed research will improve understanding and provide modelling tools on the interaction between NBSs and estuarine wide salt intrusion.