Posted on July 1, 2026
On 24 June, the CEDA Annual General Meeting was held. For those not present, you can find the presidents report below:
CEDA currently has 5 commissions, which report to the CEDA Board. They are:
Strategy Commission
- Dredging Management Commission
- Environment Commission
- Decarbonisation Commission
- Young CEDA Commission
The communications commission has evolved into an editorial board for the CEDA newsletter.
Under the commissions, we have several working groups. These are:
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions and uptake from sediment in dredging – a paper is expected to be finalised this year
- Contaminants of emerging concern in sediment – work in progress
- Joint CEDA/HSB/IFHS Working Group on managing UXO’s and associated risks in coastal and nearshore projects – work in progress
- Working Group on sustainable marine and freshwater infrastructure projects. This new working group has been recently established to create a framework (checklist) for assessment of sustainable marine and freshwater infrastructure projects. If you want to join the working group, please contact Mieke.
- CEDA Working Group on Beneficial Use 2026. Another new Working Group initiated by the CEDA UK section. You can find more information on the website or through Mieke.
There was also a joint PIANC-CEDA-IADC Working Group on environmental windows. Their work has been published at the beginning of this year. You can download their paper from our website.
WODA (made up of the three associations CEDA, EADA, and WEDA) currently have two Working Groups:
- WODA Reservoir Dredging Working Group – their extensive paper is due to be published this year.
- WODA Working Group on Deep Sea Mining – work is ongoing
One of our main objectives is to connect and bridge the gap between stakeholders. In view of this, we organised a one day event in Copenhagen in November last year with the theme: Finding the Balance. Over 30 participants from port authorities, contractors, consultants and universities came together to discuss the different interests and requirements that dredging projects must address. The goal was to raise awareness about the diverse perspectives at play, and to encourage an open-minded, collaborative approach to navigate them. The 2nd event in this series will take place later this year in Rouen, France on 18 November in cooperation with HAROPA PORT.
The CEDA Dredging Days took take place from 11-13 May 2026 in Antwerp. A beautiful setting, a record number of more than 300 participants and a record number of sessions. Judging from the feedback received, we can consider this conference a great success! Once again, we would like to thank our partners and supporters for making all of this possible. The next Dredging Days will be held in 2029 and not in 2028 as you would expect. In 2028, the WODCON is taking place in Asia Pacific and the PIANC World Conference is taking place in Antwerp so we don’t want to compete in terms of papers and participants. However, since CEDA will celebrate it’s 50th anniversary in 2028, we will organise a celebrational event. Details on both this, and Dredging Days 2029, will be announced at a later stage.
In co-operation with IADC , we organised two editions of the course “Dredging for Sustainable Infrastructure” last year. One in Copenhagen and one in Singapore. Last week, another course took place in Delft. Future editions of the course are still to be announced.
Our Dredgepoint database is kept up-to-date by a group of volunteers and is sustained with the help of our main sponsor Damen, together with our other supporters: Alia Instruments BV, Dutch Dredging Components BV, Boogaard Brokers, EQvolve, Royal IHC and DE Klop BV. In 2025 a major upgrade was implemented improving both the front and backend user friendliness and the visibility of our sponsors.
In 2025, we released Dredging: The Facts – Update 2025, a comprehensive update of the brochures Dredging the Facts and Dredging the Environmental Facts. This newly updated publication reflects significant developments in dredging practices, technologies, and sustainability. The document incorporates the latest thinking on sustainable infrastructure, nature-based solutions, and the beneficial use of dredged material. It also features updated insights into regulatory frameworks, stakeholder engagement, and adaptive project management strategies.
Also in 2025 we published a Study of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in the Dredging Sector. The aim was to understand which SDG’s were already being referenced and to what extent any other relevant SDG’s could be considered in future reporting. Main conclusions and full report can be found on our website.
