Maasvlakte 2 The sustainable port (pdf, 6427Kb)

28of seven reference designs forthe outer contour. This includedmapping out the impact of eachdesign on the coastline fromZeeland to the Wadden Sea,for example. Furthermore, astudy was made into which typeof sea wall would be the safest,most sustainable, and mostcost-effective solution. Anassessment was made of themarine safety by monitoring, forinstance, the changed wave andcurrent patterns: How safe will itbe for the seagoing vessels toenter the port under even the mostextreme weather conditions?The relation between the port site,recreation and nature functionswas reviewed: How could the threebe balanced best? The sevenreference designs were assessedon the basis of 27 criteria all in all.Separate entrance or not?Ultimately, in 2001, it was decidedto proceed with two variants witha total surface area of 2,500 ha.The main question was whetheror not it was desirable to realise adirect entrance from the sea. Twoyears on, an optimised design waspresented: the cut-through variant.It turned out that the cut-throughvariant was the mostenvironmentally friendly option, thatit benefited safety and accessibility,and that it was less expensive.An exclusive port entrance forMaasvlakte 2 in particular would bemore expensive due to thenecessary construction of a portdam. In addition, the port would stillremain inaccessible in the eventof extreme weather conditions.Moreover, this variant would causemore silt to be sucked in, meaningthat more maintenance would berequired to keep the docks at therequired depth.The cut-through variant:compact, in line with thecoastline, and safeCompact shape saves spaceThe cut-through variant consists ofa compact plot of land with accessfor shipping via the existingYangtzehaven area. This explainsthe name ‘cut-through variant’:the entrance to Maasvlakte 2 is acut-through from Yangtzehaven.The compact shape of thecut-through variant forms anefficient solution for the planningof the available space: less landis required to arrive at the samevolume of grantable space.Maasvlakte 2 will be 2,000 insteadof 2,500 ha in size and there willstill be 1,000 ha of newly availablesites. The reduction in size was notat the cost of the net grantable