Jan De Nul & Partners Build 1st AquaForest Mangrove Island

On Tuesday 12 November 2024, Luxembourg-based civil engineering company Jan De Nul and its partners announced the completion of their first AquaForest mangrove island, built with locally dredged material from the maintenance dredging of the Guayaquil access channel in Ecuador.

Partners from government, industry, science and local communities have developed AquaForest, a pilot project for mangrove restoration. Mangrove forests are considered important carbon sinks and can store up to four times more carbon per hectare than tropical forests. They serve as water filters, are a biodiversity hotspot, protect coasts from erosion and support socio-economic activities such as ecotourism and sustainable fisheries. But since 1980, 50% of Ecuador’s mangroves have disappeared due to intensive aquaculture, logging and urban development.

The 50-hectare AquaForest mangrove island is located on an existing foreshore in the Guayas river delta in Ecuador. AquaForest is not the first mangrove restoration project. However, as Jan De Nul noted, it is the first mangrove island to be built from scratch using locally dredged material. The circular use of dredged material is believed to create a significant economic benefit, making this pilot project interesting to replicate on a large scale.

According to Dominic De Prins, Project Manager for AquaForest in Ecuador at Jan De Nul Group: “In 2018, Jan De Nul Group signed a 25-year concession contract to carry out dredging work in the access channel to the port of Guayaquil in Ecuador. At the beginning of the project, we noticed that there were many shallow foreshores near the access channel. We had the idea of raising one of these areas by reusing sediments dredged from the Guayaquil access channel, which would allow the development of mangrove habitats. This allows us to link nature restoration to one of our core activities.”

The goal of AquaForest is to create a sustainable mangrove ecosystem that will become self-sustaining in the future. Andrea Reyes, Assistant Professor of Biology, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL), commented: “We studied several important factors for the optimal growth of mangrove habitats in AquaForest. interaction with waves and currents, water circulation and drainage from the soil, the type of soil in which mangroves thrive, interaction with other plants and species... We also studied the type of protection that young mangroves need during the first months of their development.”

Collaboration with local communities has been described as a key pillar of the project. AquaForest has established a local management system for the mangrove island, based on its ecological and socio-economic value. Local stakeholders and communities have been involved in every step of the project.

AquaForest partners will continue to test, monitor and quantify the effectiveness of this newly created mangrove ecosystem. They will examine its contribution in protecting coastal communities from flooding and erosion, increasing biodiversity and providing socio-economic benefits to local communities. This pilot project could pave the way for similar projects in the region, as well as globally in other locations that are favourable to mangrove forest development.

Dominic De Prins, Jan De Nul Group, stated: “Expertise, equipment, project management and a global presence, Jan De Nul has everything under one roof to replicate AquaForest locally and globally. The circular reuse of dredged material adds an economic advantage, making this type of nature-based solution economically viable. We truly believe in the potential of this project to restore mangroves on a global scale.”

AquaForest is an international consortium coordinated by Jan De Nul. The partners are South Pole, Mantis Consulting, Haedes, ESPOL University in Ecuador, the University of Antwerp, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the NGO Fundación Calisur.