Since the thirteenth century, quay walls of significant retaining height have been built in the Netherlands in urban environments. Over time, structural revisions were often carried out due to excessive deformations or the use of increasingly larger and deeper vessels. These historic quay walls were seldom designed for the current functional requirements they are subjected to. These mostly older quay walls require more maintenance and revisions to secure a certain degree of safety. In some cases they need to be demolished and completely rebuilt.

Urban Quay Walls offers safety protocols and a clear approach on how to inspect, design and maintain urban quay walls. The book offers:

- an insight on the development of urban quay walls;
- a description of the main forms (as used in The Netherlands);
- quicksteps for the inspection of existing quay walls.

Urban Quay Walls presents a proposal for a uniform and standardised method to verify the actual state of current quay walls in urban environments. This handbook presents an overview of the development of urban quay walls over the course of time and describes the main types in use in the Netherlands. Subsequently, a method is presented for deciding whether or not a historic quay wall needs to be renovated, renewed or maintained.