INSTITUTE OF NATURAL SCIENCES
Operational Directorate Natural Environment
MARECO – Marine Ecology and Management
Bat migration at sea and on land Bats are known to migrate across the North Sea in spring and autumn. These seasonal movements across the marine environment remain largely unseen and understudied. To address the knowledge gaps related to bat migration and possible offshore wind farms effects, MARECO launched a two-year research project investigating bat migration…
MSP4MORE MSP4MORE addresses the challenge of expanding offshore renewable energy while balancing nature conservation, ecosystem restoration, and other sea uses. The project optimises the design and location of offshore wind farms across the Baltic, North, Mediterranean, and Barents Seas, considering trade-offs, risks, and synergies between policy goals. Through research in seven study areas and collaboration…
Passive fishing in nature restoration areas for coastal and inland fisheries As protected marine areas expand and exclude bottom-trawling, this project tests whether passive fishing methods (fyke nets, gill nets) can coexist with nature restoration. Research takes place at the Veerse Meer (Netherlands), monitoring catch composition and yields across a native oyster reef, a Japanese…
CAFEINE CAFEINE investigates how offshore structures reshape marine carbon cycling in the Belgian part of the North Sea. By adding hard structures to soft-sediment seas, these structures create habitats for filter-feeding fauna such as mussels, which remove phytoplankton, alter particle dynamics, and redirect energy from the water column to the seafloor. CAFEINE develops an integrated…
Ocean Observation Digital Platform The Digital Platform for Ocean Observation project will develop a web-based environment that enables Member States to upload ocean observation campaign plans and subsequently visualise, manage and extract them. The platform will focus on campaign metadata (who observes what, where, when, why, and how) rather than raw observation data. The project…
ANEMOI – Chemical emissions from offshore wind farms The Anemoi project studies the chemical emissions from offshore wind farms (OWFs) and their impact on ecosystems and aquaculture. Along with the expansion of OWFs in the North Sea, the environmental impact of OWFs is routinely monitored by assessing the effect of novel habitat introduction, the exclusion…
Oyster restoration monitoring The Belgian part of the North Sea was once home to extensive offshore reefs of the European flat oyster Ostrea edulis. These reefs constituted an important habitat in the marine ecosystem, supporting a range of species and ecosystem functions. Belgium has ambitious plans to restore these lost reefs in the areas where…
SpongeScan – Deciphering the role of glass SPONGEs in the carbon and Silicate cycle of a Changing ANt-arctic. Large glass sponges (hexactinellids) are formative structural elements of the benthic communities of the Antarctic shelf, helping to create habitat for a rich associated fauna. Glass sponge communities mostly colonise zones of high primary productivity, such as…
DECOMPASS: Decommissioning Compass for Offshore Wind The project develops a quantitative model to evaluate the economic and environmental sustainability of plausible strategies/scenarios for the decommissioning and processing of Belgian offshore wind turbines. It is based on (1) a detailed analysis of decommissioning techniques, logistics, and spatial planning in ports, and (2) an integrated techno-economic analysis,…
MINING IMPACT III MININGIMPACT aims to strengthen the scientific basis for understanding and managing the environmental risks of deep-sea mining. Building on earlier project phases, MININGIMPACT 3 investigates baseline ecosystem conditions, mining-related disturbance, and the vulnerability of deep-sea ecosystems in polymetallic nodule regions, including the Clarion-Clipperton Zone and the DISCOL experimental area. The project brings…
