Martin J. Baptist

• PhD
• Senior Researcher at Wageningen University & Research

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are increasingly recognized as effective measures for mitigating flood risks and enhancing climate change adaptation. However, evaluating their efficacy in delivering flood risk reduction ecosystem service (FRR-ESS) is usually limited by reliance on qualitative, expert-based “quick-scan” scoring methods. While already c...

Due to the benefits to the ecosystem there is a growing incentive to limit management interventions of stranded whales. This study was conducted to test the impact of a stranded whale carcass decomposing in a natural dune ecosystem and to gain experience in managing a beached whale carcass. A 4.70 m male juvenile minke whale Balaenoptera acutorostr...

This chapter examines the Netherlands' challenges in safeguarding its low-lying coastline against rising sea levels and the consequences of coastal defense strategies on marine life, particularly in relation to SDG14. Sea-level rise necessitates increased soft coastal defense strategies, affecting seafloor areas and marine biodiversity through sand...

This deliverable presents the generation of EUNIS habitat maps for Europe as a whole and for each of the pilot areas in REST-COAST. Subsequently, it presents the assignment of semi-quantitative scores for the contribution of each EUNIS (sub)habitat to the five key ecosystem services applying the rank scale 0 (none), 1 (very low contribution), 2 (lo...

The Mansholt lecture is organized annually, in Bruxelles, by Wageningen University & Research (WUR) with the aim of inspiring European policymakers and other stakeholders in relation to pressing societal issues, in particular when they are related to sustainable food systems and the role that nature can play in improving the quality of life and wel...

A global concern for coastal ecosystems is the predicted rise in sea-level for which salt marshes must keep pace by increasing in surface elevation sufficiently. Variables that control this elevation change need to be identified to predict the adaptability of marshes to future sea-level rise. Many European marshes are grazed by livestock and these...

We describe six datasets that contain GPS and accelerometer data of 202 Eurasian oystercatchers (Haema-topus ostralegus) spanning the period 2008-2021. Birds were equipped with GPS trackers in breeding and wintering areas in the Netherlands and Belgium. We used GPS trackers from the University of Amsterdam A peer-reviewed open-access journal Henk-J...

Intertidal salt marshes provide a range of valuable ecosystem services which typically increase with marsh width. Understanding the drivers for salt marsh expansion versus retreat is thus key to managers. Previous research highlights the influence of short-term (daily/event) bed level dynamics on germination and establishment and subsequent vegetat...

p>The authors regret that an error has been made in the GIS-calculations for making the ecotope map of the trilateral Wadden Sea. It is necessary to make corrections to Figs. 2, 3, 4 and 5, as well as Table 3. Some corrections need to be made to the text. The results for the cluster dendrogram in Fig 4 have become slightly different. The first clus...

We studied nearshore diurnal fish catches and fisheries development in the early stages of mangrove rehabilitation around the village of Timbulsloko on the central north coast of Java, Indonesia. Mangrove rehabilitation was part of a Nature-based Solutions project to re-establish ecological and economic resilience by combining coastal engineering m...

Constructed salt marshes as a Nature-Based Solution for coastal defense offer additional benefits over conventional engineering, but project realization is often hampered by practical and governmental obstacles. We assessed the execution of a local-scale salt marsh construction project as a Nature-Based Solution (NBS) with respect to the regional-s...

Salt marshes are vegetated ecosystems between land and sea, hosting unique plant and animal communities, contributing to crucial habitats for birds and providing numerous other ecosystem services. They form a sustainable nature-based coastal protection, and its protective value increases with the width of the system. Salt marshes and their adjoinin...

Salt marshes, providing numerous ecosystem services, are degrading worldwide. To effectively aid conservation and restoration efforts, increased knowledge on marsh expansion processes and the initial establishment of pioneer vegetation is essential. In this study, we disentangle environmental drivers that affect the lifecycle of the annual pioneer...

The Netherlands faces major challenges: the energy transition, transition toward sustainable agriculture, restoring biodiversity, urbanisation and climate adaptation. All these challenges have consequences for spatial planning in our country. It is inevitable that the Netherlands will look much different in a hundred years. Major changes are needed...

Coastal systems worldwide deliver vital ecosystem services, such as biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and coastal protection. Effectivity of these ecosystem services increases when vegetation is present. Understanding the mechanisms behind vegetation establishment in bio‐geomorphic systems is necessary to understand their ability to recover after...

The natural sediment cycle is disrupted and impacted by human interventions world-wide, such as dams in rivers, port developments in estuaries, dredging activities for the maintenance of existing ports and waterways, and pollution from industrial activities. Coasts, shores, lakes and rivers suffer from an imbalance in sediment quantity and poor sed...

Here we present the first digital, publicly available, ecotope map of the trilateral Wadden Sea covering the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. This ecotope map, representative for the time period 2008–2012, was developed on the basis of bathymetry, salinity, flow velocity, exposure time, sediment composition, hard substrates and salt marshes. Ecoto...

In the light of challenges raised by a changing climate and increasing population pressure in coastal regions, it has become clear that theoretical models and scattered experiments do not provide the data we urgently need to understand coastal conditions and processes. We propose a Dutch coastline observatory named ICON.NL, based at the Delfland Co...

We test an innovative approach to beneficially re-use dredged sediment to enhance salt marsh development. A Mud Motor is a dredged sediment disposal in the form of a semi-continuous source of mud in a shallow tidal channel allowing natural processes to disperse the sediment to nearby mudflats and salt marshes. We describe the various steps in the d...

The Lesser Black-backed Gull, Larus fuscus Linnaeus, 1758, is a surface feeder with a broad prey spectrum that forages in the North Sea on subsurface pelagic fishes and crabs swimming within 0.6 m of the sea surface. In July 2006 and in July/August 2009, we surveyed the Frisian Front area in the southern North Sea (53.4°N–54.3°N, 4.0°E–5.5°E) to de...

In the Netherlands, wintering Common Scoters usually concentrate north of the eastern Wadden Islands, and to a lesser extent in the southwestern Voordelta. In some years however, concentrations are found at other sites. In 2015/16 large numbers of scoters were recorded off the Dutch coast near Bergen/Camperduin. Numbers were estimated from counts o...

The QSR describes and evaluates the current ecological status of the Wadden Sea. It identifies changes in this status and their possible causes, classifies issues of concern and indicates possible measures of redress, including evaluation of the likely effectiveness of these measures, and it detects gaps in knowledge. The QSR is an output of the Tr...

The QSR describes and evaluates the current ecological status of the Wadden Sea. It identifies changes in this status and their possible causes, classifies issues of concern and indicates possible measures of redress, including evaluation of the likely effectiveness of these measures, and it detects gaps in knowledge. The QSR is an output of the Tr...

Spatial planning has to deal with trade-offs between various stakeholders’ wishes and needs as part of planning and management of landscapes, natural resources and/or biodiversity. To make ecosystem services (ES) trade-off research more relevant for spatial planning, we propose an analytical framework, which puts stakeholders, their land-use/manage...

Foraging distributions are thought to be density-dependent, because animals not only select for a high availability and quality of resources, but also avoid conspecific interference. Since these processes are confounded, their relative importance in shaping foraging distributions remains poorly understood. Here we aimed to rank the contribution of...

The shallow coastal zone is an essential nursery habitat for juvenile flatfish species such as sole (Solea solea L.). The increased frequency of shoreface nourishments along the coast is likely to affect this nursery function by altering important habitat conditions, including sediment grain size. Sediment preference of juvenile sole (41–91mm) was...

Wadden Sea ports are situated at the border of the UNESCO World Heritage site Wadden Sea. Because of the protected status of this area, developing new economic activities is not straightforward. However, maintaining and developing port activities is needed to safeguard the economic viability of the Wadden Sea socio-economic region. In this paper we...

World-wide the turbidity of many rivers, estuaries and shallow seas is increasing, leading to degradation of water quality and growing siltation. Large volumes of dredged sediments are disposed and lost offshore, while coastal regions and river banks are eroding, exposing towns to more recurrent flooding. A huge amount of sediment is trapped in res...

The growth and decline of salt marshes may be the result of various interacting biogeomorphic processes and external factors. We present a case study of the Mokbaai on the Wadden island of Texel, where we assess the relative importance and the interaction between the biogeomorphic processes and various disturbances. We analysed changes in vegetatio...

Several harbours along the Dutch Wadden Sea deal with large siltation rates and limited possibilities for developments. However, development of new harbour activities is needed for these harbours to be able to survive in the long run. As these harbours lie in or close to areas with a protected status, expansion is not straightforward. In this paper...

The demand for marine sand in the Netherlands as well as globally is increasing. Over the last decades, only shallow sand extraction of 2 m below the seabed was allowed on the Dutch Continental Shelf (DCS). To guarantee sufficient supply and to decrease the surface area of direct impact, the Dutch authorities started to promote sand extraction dept...

Distribution patterns and species composition of macrozoobenthos were studied in the Dutch coastal zone in front of the Port of Rotterdam. Relationships between macrozoobenthic assemblages and environmental variables were determined using non-metric dimensional scaling (nMDS) based on 470 boxcore, bottom sledge and sediment samples collected in spr...

We studied short-term changes in macrozoobenthos in a 20 m deep borrow pit. A boxcorer was used to sample macrobenthic infauna and a bottom sledge was used to sample macrobenthic epifauna. Sediment characteristics were determined from the boxcore samples, bed shear stress and near-bed salinity were estimated with a hydrodynamic model. Two years aft...

The Maasvlakte 2 (MV2) is a new location for port activities and industry to be created in the North Sea, directly to the west of the current port of Rotterdam and the surrounding industrial area. The required sand will be taken from carefully selected locations at sea, but will also become available when the port itself is deepened. The land recla...

We studied short-term changes in macrozoobenthos in a 20 m deep borrow pit. A box-corer was used to sample macrozoobenthic infauna and a bottom sledge was used to sample macrozoobenthic epifauna. Sediment characteristics were determined from the box-core samples, bed shear stress and near-bed salinity were estimated with a hydrodynamic model. Two y...

The demand for marine sand in the Netherlands and globally is still increasing. The Dutch authorities promote sand extraction depths deeper than 2 m for projects over 10 million m3 of sand, to maintain sufficient supply and to decrease the surface area of impact. The ecological effects of deep sand extraction, however, are still largely unknown. Th...

Hydraulic engineering infrastructures are of concern to many people and are likely to interfere with the environment. Moreover, they are supposed to keep on functioning for many years. In times of rapid societal and environmental change this implies that sustainability and adaptability are important attributes. These are central to Building with Na...

Het Eems estuarium heeft al geruime tijd te kampen met ecologische problemen van diverse aard. In het Bestuurlijk Overleg MIRT (Meerjarenprogramma Infrastructuur, Ruimte en Transport) NoordNederland in het najaar van 2013, is afgesproken dat rijk en regio een MIRT-onderzoek Eems-Dollard starten. Het rijk en de provincie Groningen zijn gezamenlijk d...

Marine extraction sites alter the morphology of the seabed and in doing so offer unique opportunities to create a new environment in these locations. A new physical lay-out means deeper waters and different currents and sediment characteristics, which offer conditions to develop a new ecosystem or a sanctuary for certain fish species. This potentia...

For the seaward harbour extension of the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, approximately 220 million m3 of sand was extracted between 2009 and 2013. To decrease the surface area of direct impact, the Dutch authorities permitted deep sand extraction, down to 20 m below the seabed. Biological and physical impacts of large-scale, deep sand extract...

Marine extraction sites alter the morphology of the seabed and in doing so offer unique opportunities to create a new environment in these locations. A new physical lay-out means deeper waters, and different currents and -sediment characteristics. These offer conditions to develop a new ecosystem or a sanctuary for certain fish species. This potent...

De kwelder De Karhoek in de Mokbaai op Texel maakt onderdeel uit van het Nationaal Park Duinen van Texel. De Werkgroep Onderzoek van het Nationaal Park vermoedt dat het kwelderoppervlak de afgelopen decennia aanzienlijk is afgenomen en vreest dat de kwelder in de toekomst nog kleiner zal worden. Een ander punt van zorg is de voortgaande rietvorming...

MIRT-onderzoek (Meerjaren Programma Infrastructuur Ruimte en Transport) naar de ecologische verbetermogelijkheden van het Eems-Dollard estuarium in samenhang met de economische en sociale functies die het gebied vervult. Met de DPSIR methode wordt een oorzaak-gevolg keten inzichtelijk gemaakt volgens 5 elementen: Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Respon...

Bij ondertekening van de ruimtelijke visie op de maritieme zone van Delfzijl stelden de natuurbeschermingsorganisaties voor om een alternatief spuimiddel bij de Pier van Oterdum te combineren met een zoetzout overgang met vismigratievoorzieningen. Het consortium Ecoshape hebben een verkenning uitgevoerd naar een mogelijke inrichting voor deze nieuw...

Door EZ is gevraagd om ecologisch advies te leveren bij de plannen die in ontwikkeling zijn voor buitendijkse ontwikkeling bij Striep, Terschelling. Daarvoor is eerst de huidige situatie geanalyseerd. Het wad heeft een functie als foerageergebied voor vogels. Het ligt relatief hoog ten opzichte van de wijdere omgeving, maar nog steeds te laag om me...

Track-while-scan bird radars are widely used in ornithological studies, but often the precise detection capabilities of these systems are unknown. Quantification of radar performance is essential to avoid observational biases, which requires practical methods for validating a radar's detection capability in specific field settings. In this study a...

Het evenemententerrein van Sail & Marinedagen Den Helder ligt in het Natura 2000 gebied Waddenzee. De kans op significante gevolgen zijn niet bij voorbaat uit te sluiten. In deze Passende Beoordeling wordt vastgesteld of er kans is op significante gevolgen op de instandhoudingsdoelstellingen van het Natura 2000 gebied Waddenzee en nabije Natura 200...

Jaarlijks spoelen in Nederland honderden bruinvissen dood aan op de kust. Onderzoek heeft laten zien dat “scherp trauma" (snij- en rijtwonden, amputaties) veelvuldig voorkomt. Vanaf 2005 hadden gemiddeld 14.4% van de gestrande bruinvissen scherp trauma, met uitschieters tot 20.5% in 2012 en 21.4% in 2010. Veel gevallen van scherp trauma worden geme...

11 Abstract The Wadden Sea forms the coastal strip bordering the North Sea in NW Europe. Along most of its length it is separated from the North Sea by a string of barrier islands. The system consists of many recognizable geomorphic units (here called ecotopes), such as islands, high sandbanks, sand dunes, salt marshes, subtidal and intertidal sand...

With 80% of the world's population living in lowland urban areas by 2050, sea levels gradually rising and societal demands on the quality of living increasing, sustainable development of coastal zones becomes increasingly urgent as well as complex. Modern strategies for the design and implementation of measures for infrastructure development, coast...

In de afgelopen jaren zijn verscheidene plannen voor natuurontwikkeling in de Waddenzee ontwikkeld. In essentie leiden deze plannen tot een aanpassing van de reeds aanwezige natuurlijke habitats. Dit gebeurt meestal met een intentie om de natuur te herstellen of te verbeteren, maar het leidt naar de letter van de wet tot een conflict met de Nederla...

This book started as an idea at the GeoHab meeting held in Noumea, New Caledonia, in May 2007. We noticed that multibeam bathymetry maps of geomorphic features, sometimes shown as 3D fly-thru movies, followed by detailed sampling and photographic data (including underwater videos) illustrating the substrate conditions and associated biota was a con...

Southeastern Bay of Biscay (Basque coast) seafloor characterization and benthic habitat mapping was carried out integrating data from multibeam echosounder, topographic and bathymetric LiDAR, video, and sediment and biological sampling ranging from the intertidal zone up to 100 m depth over 1,096 km 2. The area shows high geomorpho-logic diversity...

Bouwen mét de natuur, het zou iedereen winst op kunnen leveren. Met de zandmotor voor de kust en met kunstmatige oesterriffen die zandplaten in de Oosterschelde beschermen, en wellicht met nieuwe kwelders in het Waddengebied. Profijtelijk voor de natuur, de staatskas en het bedrijfsleven dat het natuurlijke waterwerk kan exporteren. IMARES Wagening...

In het kader van het project Marconi (Maritieme Concepten in beeld) te Delfzijl is een plan ontwikkeld om vóór de Schermdijk van Delfzijl een golfremmende kwelder aan te leggen. Deze kwelder zal de hoogwaterveiligheid van Delfzijl vergroten, waardevolle natuur toevoegen in dit deel van de Eems- Dollard en voorzien in recreatiemogelijkheden. Voor de...

Dankzij de uitvoering van verschillende onderzoekstrajecten in de Hollandse kust, Zuidwestelijke Delta en Wadden is in de afgelopen jaren meer inzicht ontstaan in de ecologische gevolgen van zowel het suppleren van zand in de kustzone als het winnen van zand van de zeebodem. Onderzoek naar sedimentverplaatsingen heeft met name geleid tot meer inzic...

Sand nourishments can affect the coastal ecosystem in various ways. Direct effects are the burial of benthic species under a layer of sand. In the direct vicinity, suffocation of benthos can occur due to the settling of a plume of suspended sediment particles. A plume of fine particles may also increase turbidity and thereby affect primary producti...

Dit Uitvoeringsprogramma Monitoring en Evaluatie pilot Zandmotor beschrijft de evaluatiesystematiek en het monitoringplan voor de pilot Zandmotor voor de periode 2011 tot en met 2021. Het is in opdracht van Rijkswaterstaat Waterdienst gezamenlijk opgesteld door Deltares en IMARES met medewerking van Vertegaal ecologisch advies en onderzoek en Arens...

Met het concept van de Zandmotor, een megasuppletie voor de kust waarmee de kustveiligheid voor de lange termijn wordt gecombineerd met de realisatie van ruimte voor natuur en recreatie, is nog geen ervaring opgedaan. Ten behoeve van uitbestedingen van monitoringpakketten is het monitoringplan in het Uitvoeringsprogramma thematisch geordend op basi...

In het Deltaprogramma staan de waterveiligheid en de watervoorziening van Nederland nu en voor de lange termijn centraal. In de aanpak wordt actief gezocht naar de koppeling met andere ambities van rijk, provincies, waterschappen, gemeenten, maar ook van maatschappelijke organisaties en bedrijven op andere beleidsterreinen, zoals economie, natuur e...

Human impacts on water transparency may affect plunge-diving seabirds. We studied prey capture success of Sandwich Terns Sterna sandvicensis as a function of six environmental variables during the breeding season. We observed diving terns in the south eastern North Sea and found a non-linear optimum curve for the relationship between Secchi transpa...

In The Netherlands, a new policy framework for limiting human use in marine protected areas was proposed in 2004. The framework consists of a system of 'natural limits' for which scientific consensus exist that as long as these limits are not exceeded, natural processes in the Wadden Sea will not be significantly influenced. This proposal produced...

Tijdens de Ronde om Texel zal er met diverse voertuigen gereden worden op het strand tussen Paal 15 en Paal 17. Het betreft hier een aantal tractoren die de catamarans van de deelnemers naar het strand brengen. Deze tractoren worden uitsluitend bestuurd door bevoegd en bekwaam personeel. Alle bij de organisatie ingedeelde chauffeurs krijgen een uit...

Elk jaar maken 10-12 miljoen vogels gebruik van de internationale Waddenzee, als pleisterplaats op hun jaarlijkse heen- en terugreis tussen de broedgebieden en de overwinteringsgebied. Deze vogels gebruiken de Waddenzee voor een korte stop, als opvetgebied om langduriger bij te tanken voor een langere etappe, als ruigebied en als overwinteringsgebi...

The coast of The Netherlands is protected by nourishing sand. Generally, two different techniques are used, beach nourishment and shoreface nourishment. The latter technique supplies sand at a water depth of about 5-8m in the surf zone, and has been used on a regular basis since 1997 with increasing volumes since 2001. Observations on the bivalve m...

Als eerste stap in deze studie is een verkenning uitgevoerd op basis van literatuur naar de mogelijke effecten van zandsuppleties voor de ecologie rond het gebied. De zandophogingen aan de kust hebben namelijk gevolgen voor de ecologie (natuurwaarden) van de kust. Het blijkt dat bodemdieren direct beïnvloed worden door suppleties als gevolg van bed...

In The Netherlands, the shore is protected by supplying sand on the beaches and onto the shoreface. To enable predictions of future states of beach ecosystems, and to contribute to the development of effective and sustainable nourishment practices, knowledge on ecological and morphological processes is essential. Furthermore, because these two aspe...

Het programma “Ecologisch gericht suppleren, nu en in de toekomst” is een onderzoeks- en monitoringsprogramma voor de middellange termijn (2009-2014) met als doelstelling meer inzicht te krijgen of, en in welke mate, zandsuppleties van invloed zijn op natuurwaarden en op welke wijze zandsuppleties in de nabije toekomst kunnen bijdragen aan de opgav...

The “Ewijkse Plaat” is a floodplain along the Waal River, NL. In 1988, the floodplain was excavated as part of a program for enlargement of the discharge capacity and was assigned as a nature rehabilitation area. This paper describes the combined geomorphological and vegetation evolution of the floodplain until 16 years after the initial excavation...

Floodplain roughness parameterization is one of the key elements of hydrodynamic modeling of river flow, which is directly linked to exceedance levels of the embankments of lowland fluvial areas. The present way of roughness mapping is based on manually delineated floodplain vegetation types, schematized as cylindrical elements of which the height...

Het begrip natuurgrenzen wordt de laatste jaren regelmatig gebruikt in het kader van beleidsontwikkeling. In de praktijk blijkt dat het niet eenvoudig is om het begrip zodanig inhoud te geven dat vergunningverlening er op gebaseerd kan worden. Mede omdat er verwarring en overlap was er met het begrip gebruiksgrens. Geconcludeerd wordt dat er wel de...

Het beheer van zee- en kustsystemen wordt steeds complexer. Er zijn conflicterende ruimteclaims in het kustgebied en op de Noordzee. De klimaatverandering en de concurrentie tussen visserij- en natuurbelangen dwingt ons tot actie om de kustveiligheid te waarborgen en om nieuwe kansen te zoeken. In zijn inaugurele rede gaat dr.ir. Martin J. Baptist...

The format for the nomination of properties for inscription in the World Heritage List requires a comparative analysis (including state of conservation of similar properties) of the similar sites, whether on the World Heritage List or not. The comparison should outline the similarities the nominated property has with other properties and the reason...

Dit rapport bevat de resultaten van een studie naar herstel van estuariene dynamiek in de Delta. In deze studie wordt beschreven wat estuariene dynamiek is, worden opties voor herstel onderzocht en wordt bekeken wat de consequenties zijn voor natuur en gebruiksfuncties. De hierin gepresenteerde varianten voor herstel richten zich op de lange termij...

The paper describes the process of induction of equations for the description of vegetation-induced roughness from several angles. Firstly, it describes two approaches for obtaining theoretically well-founded analytical expressions for vegetation resistance. The first of the two is based on simplified assumptions for the vertical flow profile throu...

De ontwikkelingen in de Eemshaven (en binnenkort de nog veel verder gaande vaargeulverdieping naar Emden) benadrukken de spanning tussen het economische gebruik (zeehavens c.q. baggerwerken) en natuur van het estuarium. Omdat het probleem van baggeren en daarmee samenhangende activiteiten zoals verstoring, storten, veranderingen in geomorfologie en...

De winning van grote hoeveelheden suppletiezand op de Noordzee is MER-plichtig. In de gehouden m.e.r. analyse wordt onder andere gesteld dat de effecten op zichtjagende (broedende) sterns van de zandwinning nabij de Razende Bol verwaarloosbaar zijn. Om effectschattingen van troebelheid te valideren is een evaluatieprogramma opgesteld door Rijkswate...

This report describes the Outstanding Unique Values of the Wadden Sea from an ecological perspective, that is, according to criteria IX and X for the nomination of World Heritage Sites, as defined by the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas.

Vooroeverzandsuppleties vinden in Nederland in toenemende mate plaats. Hierbij worden grote hoeveelheden zand aangebracht in de grotendeels onder Vogel- en Habitatrichtlijn beschermde Kustzee; zand dat wordt gewonnen buiten dit gebied en dus “gebiedsvreemd” is. Hiermee bestaat er een risico, dat het habitat van dit beschermde gebied wordt aangetast...