Seismic at the heart of Nederwiek Site I gets shortlisted for Award!

At RockWave, we love projects that push seismic data to its limits – and Nederwiek Wind Farm Zone Site I has been a brilliant example of just that. Located about 90 km off the Dutch coast, this site is a key piece of the Netherlands’ offshore wind ambitions, and we’ve been proud to play our part in making sure the ground model is built on seismic you can trust. Furthermore, it has just been announced that the team have been shortlisted for the ‘Best Use of Subsurface Modelling’ at the GE Geotech Awards 2025.

Why it matters

Offshore wind developers need to know what lies beneath the seabed before they commit to designing and building turbines, foundations, or cables. That means having a ground model that isn’t just “good enough,” but robust, consistent, and ready to support multi-billion-euro decisions. And the foundation of any good ground model? High-quality seismic data, processed the right way.

Our role

For this project, we teamed up with a fantastic group of partners – Arup, SolidGround, Inosys, and BGS – to bring together geotechnical data, lab work, and seismic. Our job was to take the ultra-high-resolution seismic (UHRS) data and squeeze every drop of detail out of it through advanced “inversion-ready” processing. Later, pre-stack seismic inversion allowed geotechnical parameters to be predicted across the entire site, not just at borehole or CPT locations.

In simple terms: seismic gives you the full picture, and when it’s processed properly, it ties everything together. That’s where RockWave came in.

From seismic to ground model

Seismic inversion has long been used in oil and gas, but here it’s being applied in the top 100 metres of seabed – the critical zone for offshore wind infrastructure. By blending the interpreted seismic with physical soil data, the project delivered a 3D integrated ground model that shows how layers and features vary across the site. This helps engineers design foundations, plan safe cable routes, and reduce uncertainty before the first steel goes into the water.

Looking ahead

The geological ground model for Nederwiek Site I is now available, with more outputs (including the GIR and IGM) to follow in 2025. A webinar has also been made available, showing the results of the blind test to compare CPT predicted vs actual. Fascinating stuff, all available here: https://offshorewind.rvo.nl/page/view/9a29f764-31f1-4bbb-9ee5-03aee69f643a/soil-nederwiek

LinkedIn post by Joep Bronkhorst

For us at RockWave, it’s been exciting to show how top-tier seismic processing underpins everything else in offshore wind site characterisation. Strong data leads to strong models, and strong models lead to better, faster, and safer offshore wind development.