INSTITUTE OF NATURAL SCIENCES
Operational Directorate Natural Environment
MARECO – Marine Ecology and Management
BLUE CONNECT The BLUE CONNECT project aims to protect and restore marine habitats to achieve EU and global conservation goals by 2030. Collaborating with Marine Protected Areas managers, authorities, industries, and local communities from several demonstration sites, it will develop a systematic approach to marine conservation implementation. This effort will create a robust blueprint for…
PHAROS: Lighthouse for Atlantic and Arctic Basin Climate change, biodiversity loss and urbanization are some of the main challenges that the marine realm faces. The Pharos Project will provide tailored nature-based solutions for restoration of marine biodiversity and ecosystems, support the reduction of invasive marine species and advance the technology readiness level across the Atlantic…
EMERGENCY PLAN for Monitoring & Assessment Marine Environmental Impact in Marine Pollution Under the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), EU member states are required to monitor & assess the environmental impact of significant acute pollution at sea (mostly incidental marine pollution). Monitoring & assessment of incidental marine pollution are emergency measures that are an…
OWiDEx – Offshore Wind Decommissioning Expertise Centre Belgium is among the world leaders in the installation & maintenance of offshore wind farms. The decommissioning of the first offshore wind turbines is in sight. The knowledge already acquired about the decom value chain is fragmented, making a supported vision seem far away. This project will put all the separate elements…
ULTFARMS ULTFARMS aims to demonstrate a profitable, sustainable and eco-friendly low-trophic food (molluscs and seaweed) production from offshore aquaculture activities shared within windfarms in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. Six pilots will be implemented that combine low-trophic aquaculture (LTA) in six different offshore windfarms (OWF) across four northern European countries: Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands…
Environmental Impact Monitoring Numerous human activities take place in the Belgian part of the North Sea. Several of these activities, depending on the extent and type of the project, require an environmental permit as stated by law. This environmental permit includes a number of terms and conditions intended to minimise and/or mitigate the impact of…
DASA – Digital Animal Sound Archive The use of bio-acoustics in biological and ecological studies is widespread as they can be used to study species distribution, phenology, ecology and behaviour of organisms that are often visually elusive. This results in extensive datasets that are scattered in many different locations. As such, the overall objective of…
EcoMPV – Eco-designing marine photovoltaic installations EcoMPV will deepen the knowledge about environmental challenges related to offshore PV installations, aiming at technical solutions to mitigate undesired consequences and maximize beneficial impacts. We will address knowledge gaps about (1) altered underwater light field, hydrodynamics, pelagic biogeochemistry and primary production, (2) the artificial habitat provision for colonizing fauna and fish, and…
PureWind The PURE WIND three year JPI Oceans project will quantify key features of radiated noise from fixed and floating offshore wind farms, to increase understanding and simulate cumulative effect of clusters on radiated noise, helping to identify sensitive habitats in cross-basin soundscapes. From the biological perspective, the project will identify spatial and qualitative use…
ECOSTAR – Ecosystem level importance of Structures as Artificial Reefs EcoSTAR aims at understanding how the introduction or removal of man-made structures (MMS) will affect the North Sea ecosystem. The EcoSTAR research focusses on the interactions between man-made structures and top predators on the hand, and interactions between man-made structures and benthos on the other…
