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Introduction
Publications
Publications (59)
The Aarhus Convention is a globally recognised benchmark for democratic environmental governance. However, no assessment exists on whether European MPAs comply with the legal standards set out by the Convention. Here, we focus on public authorities’ websites on MPAs as tools for promoting transparency, public involvement, and democratic processes....
This report, targeting marine scientists, marine managers and policy makers, and offshore wind farm developers, presents an overview of the scientific findings of the Belgian offshore wind farm environmental monitoring programme (WinMon.BE), based on data collected up to and including 2022.
The presence of biofouling communities in very large densities in offshore wind farms (OWFs) generates broad effects on the structure and functioning of the marine ecosystem, yet the mechanisms behind the temporal development of these communities remain poorly understood. Here, we use an 11-year series on biofouling fauna from OWFs installed in Bel...
The European Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market, imposes a target figure for the contribution of the production of electricity from renewable energy sources upon each Member State. On 31 December 2019, Belgium submitted a National Energy and Climate Plan to...
The European Union (EU) has committed to an ambitious biodiversity recovery plan in its Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Green Deal. These policies aim to halt biodiversity loss and move towards sustainable development, focusing on restoring degraded habitats, extending the network of protected areas (PAs), and improving the effectiveness of...
This report, targeting marine scientists, marine managers and policy makers, and offshore wind farm developers, presents an overview of the scientific findings of the Belgian offshore wind farm environmental monitoring programme (WinMon.BE), based on data collected up to and including 2019.
The Block Island Wind Farm (BIWF), situated offshore of Block Island, Rhode Island, is the first commercial offshore wind farm (OWF) in the United States. We briefly review pre-siting studies, which provide contextual information about the benthic habitats and fish in the Block Island Sound area before the BIWF jacket foundations were installed in...
Offshore wind farms (OWFs) are proliferating globally. The submerged parts of their structures act as artificial reefs, providing new habitats and likely affecting fisheries resources. While acknowledging that the footprints of these structures may result in loss of habitat, usually soft sediment, we focus on how the artificial reefs established by...
Acceptance of wind energy development is challenged by stakeholders' concerns about potential effects on the environment, specifically on wildlife, such as birds, bats, and (for offshore wind) marine animals, and the habitats that support them. Communities near wind energy developments are also concerned with social and economic impacts, as well as...
Ecosystem-based management requires an assessment of the cumulative effects of human pressures and environmental change. The operationalization and integration of cumulative effects assessments (CEA) into decision-making processes often lacks a comprehensive and transparent framework. A risk-based CEA framework that divides a CEA in risk identifica...
Transboundary conservation has an important, yet often undervalued, role in the international conservation regime. When applied to the legally ambiguous and interconnected marine environment this is magnified. The lack of clear guidance for transboundary marine conservation from the international conservation community exacerbates this problem, lea...
As decommissioning of oil and gas (O&G) installations intensifies in the North Sea, and worldwide, debate rages regarding the fate of these novel habitats and their associated biota-a debate that has important implications for future decommissioning of offshore wind farms (OWFs). Calls to relax complete removal requirements in some circumstances an...
This report provides an overview of the state of affairs (1) with regards to the deployment of wet renewables and (2) marine energy storage systems; (3) how they affect abiotic and biotic compo-nents of the marine ecosystem and (4) developments and concepts on cumulative impact assess-ments related to marine renewable energy devices and (5) future...
This report provides an overview of the state of affairs (1) with regards to the deployment of wet renewables and (2) marine energy storage systems; (3) how they affect abiotic and biotic compo-nents of the marine ecosystem and (4) developments and concepts on cumulative impact assess-ments related to marine renewable energy devices and (5) future...
The aim of this document is to provide as many sources of information in the
available international instruments that may apply to marine conservation in the region. While this is not comprehensive it is extensive and provides an entry point for marine researchers to engage with legal instruments that may affect their work.
This continues to be a...
As a response to increasing human pressures on marine ecosystems, the legislation aimed at improving the conservation and management of marine coastal areas in European and Contiguous Seas (ECS) underwent crucial advances. ECS, however, still remain largely affected by increasing threats leading to biodiversity loss. Here, by using emblematic case...
As a response to increasing human pressures on marine ecosystems, the legislation aimed at improving the conservation and management of marine coastal areas in European and Contiguous Seas (ECS) underwent crucial advances. ECS, however, still remain largely affected by increasing threats leading to biodiversity loss. Here, by using emblematic case...
As a response to increasing human pressures on marine ecosystems, the legislation aimed at improving the conservation and management of marine coastal areas in European and Contiguous Seas (ECS) underwent crucial advances. ECS, however, still remain largely affected by increasing threats leading to biodiversity loss. Here, by using emblematic case...
As a response to increasing human pressures on marine ecosystems, the legislation aimed at improving the conservation and management of marine coastal areas in European and Contiguous Seas (ECS) underwent crucial advances. ECS, however, still remain largely affected by increasing threats leading to biodiversity loss. Here, by using emblematic case...
The aim of this document is to provide a resource to researchers in marine conservation by giving summaries of the international instruments that may have implications for marine conservation in the MarCons region. These instruments include international agreements and conventions, regional agreements and intergovernmental sectoral agreements, and...
This study provides an integrated perspective to ecosystem based management (EBM) by considering a diverse array of societal goals, i.e. sustainable food supply, clean energy and a healthy marine ecosystem, and a selection of management measures to achieve them. The primary aim of this exercise is to provide guidance for (more) integrated EBM in th...
The European flat oyster, Ostrea edulis, is an emblematic and ecologically important species that was fished to virtual extinction in Belgian and Dutch waters in the 19th century. We report on recent findings of live specimens in Belgian and Dutch waters, an indication for the presence of O. edulis in these waters. Though small, these relict popula...
Cumulative effects assessments (CEAs) are inherently complex and seldom linked to real-world management processes • A risk-based CEA contains risk identification , risk analysis and risk evaluation, revealing the risk of exceeding thresholds • Embedding CEAs in a risk management process reduces complexity, streamlines scientific products, and incre...
The current study presents the ostracod communities recovered from 26 shallow waterbodies in southern Kenya, combined with an ecological assessment of habitat characteristics. A total of 37 waterbodies were sampled in 2001 and 2003, ranging from small ephemeral pools to large permanent lakes along broad gradients in altitude (700–2 800 m) and salin...
In recent years, offshore wind energy in the shelf seas of the southern North Sea is experiencing a strong growth. Foundations are introduced in mainly sandy sediments, and the resulting artificial reef effect is considered one of the main impacts on the marine environment. We investigated the macrobenthic fouling community that developed on the co...
At present, everybody agrees that offshore wind farms do impact the natural environment. Whether or not these impacts should be valued positive or negative, or ecologically and societally acceptable, however remains an open question. While boosting local species richness, the artificial hard substrata may for example also open the door to non-indig...
Steel monopiles, jackets requiring four steel pinpiles, and gravity-based foundations were applied in offshore wind farms in the Belgian part of the North Sea. This paper compares the underwater noise generated during the piling activities of steel monopiles at the Belwind wind farm (Blighbank) with that of jacket pinpiles at the C-Power project (T...
In this study, we analyse the distribution and species richness of epibenthic and planktonic Cladocera (Crustacea: Branchiopoda) in 62 Uganda crater lakes, spread across the climatic gradient between the sub-humid shoulder and semi-arid floor of the East African Rift Valley. Together, these lakes cover large environmental gradients in salinity, tro...
There is a world-wide concern of the expansion of non-indigenous species because they alter
local biodiversity and sometimes compete with native species, some of which of commercial interest.
This is especially the case in shallow coastal waters, subject to a multitude of human activities,
including the construction of artificial hard substrata. We...
In 2008 the building of a first windmill park some 30km off the Belgian North Sea coast began. Such offshore constructions represent a novel, artificial, hard substratum habitat on the Belgian continental shelf, where the sea-bottom consists mainly of sandy and muddy sediment. It is anticipated that in the coming years, several hundreds of offshore...
With a depth of at least 220 in, Lake Kyaninga is the deepest known maar crater lake in western Uganda. We studied its limnology and phytoplankton community to determine how the frequency and depth of water-column mixing influences nutrient cycling and seasonality in this aquatic ecosystem.
Methods - Water-column temperature was measured continuous...
CLANIMAE project: Climatic and Anthropogenic Impacts on African Ecosystems
The finely laminated sediment record of a permanent, hypersaline, desert oasis lake in the Ounianga region of northeastern Chad presents a unique opportunity to document the hydrological evolution of this groundwater-fed aquatic ecosystem during mid- and late-Holocene desiccation of the Sahara. In this study we reconstruct long-term changes in zoob...
Desiccation of the Sahara since the middle Holocene has eradicated all but a few natural archives recording its transition
from a “green Sahara” to the present hyperarid desert. Our continuous 6000-year paleoenvironmental reconstruction from northern
Chad shows progressive drying of the regional terrestrial ecosystem in response to weakening insola...
This paper reports new multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental data on the late Glacial-Holocene transition (c. 14.8–9.3 ka) in equatorial East Africa, in the form of microfossil assemblages (chironomids, diatoms and ostracods) recovered from the sediment record of Lake Emakat, Empakaai Crater, northern Tanzania. In the context of available palaeoclimatic...
We analysed subfossil death assemblages of aquatic invertebrate communities in a salinity series of 35 western Uganda maar-crater
lakes to evaluate their potential as biological indicators of past habitat conditions in paleo-environmental research. The
study region encompasses the climatological and hydrological gradient between the dry floor and m...
Sex ratio distortion (SRD) and intersexuality are common phenomena among Isopoda (Arthropoda, Crustacea), caused by the feminizing action of the α-Proteobacterium Wolbachia (F) and/or an F DNA segment (f) integrated into the host genome, probably as a transposon. A dominant autosomal masculinizing allele (M) over- rides the primary sex determinants...
In late spring 2008 the first six concrete foundations of the C-Power wind farm were installed at the Thorntonbank, some 30 km off the Belgian coast. In the coming years several hundreds of foundations of various types and materials will be implanted in various wind farms in a designated area of the Belgian part of the North Sea (BPNS). With the co...
