Work package 2 targets mechanistic understanding and quantification of interactive land subsidence processes and environmental impacts, as occurring under present day human land management (drainage and loading) of soft soils (given historic preconditions).

Subsidence in soft clay-like soils and peat soils is considered the result of processes shrinkage, primary consolidation, viscous behaviour (creep), the loss of fibre strength, and microbial respiration of organic matter. Environmental impacts include subsidence associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emission caused by oxidation of organic matter under aerobic and anaerobic conditions.WP2 wants to resolve the interactive effects and relative contribution of these processes in total subsidence and GHG emissions and build a constitutive model that can analyse and predict soft soil behaviour for the full range of soft soils existing in the Netherlands.

Subprojects:

• WP2.1 – The Role of Microbial Decomposition in Peat Subsidence
• WP2.2 – Understanding long term viscous and short term elastic soft soil deformation leading to land subsidence
• WP2.3 Greenhouse gas production and shrinkage-swelling in peat
• WP2.4 Physical and chemical processes in soil subsidence and swelling in clays