Jentsje van der Meer

Jentsje Wouter van der Meer is a Dutch coastal engineer, researcher, professor and consultant. He is known for his research on wave–structure interaction, breakwater design, wave overtopping and the stability of coastal structures. He is the founder and principal of Van der Meer Consulting b.v.

Education and career

Van der Meer earned a BSc in Architecture from the Technical College in Leeuwarden in 1976, followed by an MSc in Civil Engineering from Delft University of Technology in 1981 and a PhD from Delft University of Technology in 1988.

He worked at Delft Hydraulics as a project engineer and project manager and later served as head of the Coastal Structures Department and Deputy Director of the Harbours, Coasts and Offshore Technology Division.

These stability formulae became widely used in the design of rubble-mound breakwaters and revetments. His doctoral research, Rock slopes and gravel beaches under wave attack, was completed at Delft University of Technology in 1988.

EurOtop

Van der Meer was one of the principal contributors to the EurOtop manual on wave overtopping of sea defences and related structures. The manual brought together research from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium and was published as a freely available engineering guidance document.

Wave Overtopping Simulator

Van der Meer developed the Wave Overtopping Simulator in 2006 as part of the ComCoast project and Dutch research on water defences. The device is a mobile water-storage system that releases controlled volumes of water at specific intervals to simulate wave overtopping on the crest and inner slope of a dike, levee or embankment.

The simulator was subsequently used for full-scale destructive testing of dikes and levees, including research into the resistance of grass-covered inner slopes to wave overtopping.

The technology was later adapted for use outside the Netherlands, including a larger simulator developed for the United States.

Cumulative Overload Method

Research using the Wave Overtopping Simulator contributed to the development of methods for assessing the strength and erosion resistance of grass-covered dikes under wave overtopping. This research included full-scale destructive tests on Dutch dikes and levees.

Selected publications and books include:

The Rock Manual: The Use of Rock in Hydraulic Engineering (2007), as a contributor.

EurOtop: Manual on Wave Overtopping of Sea Defences and Related Structures (2007; revised 2018), with Van der Meer as editor of the 2018 edition.

Design and Construction of Berm Breakwaters (2016), co-authored with Sigurdur Sigurdarson.

His work has contributed to numerous design formulations concerning coastal-structure stability, wave overtopping, wave transmission, wave reflection and related coastal engineering processes.

Awards and honours

Halcrow Premium (1987), awarded by the British Institution of Civil Engineers. T.K. Shieh Award (1992), awarded by the British Institution of Civil Engineers.