Managing benthic ecosystems in relation to physical forcing and environmental constraints

General Information

The management of shallow coastal and estuarine ecosystems is confronted with different, often opposing goals. Whereas from a local economic point of view, optimisation of culture or exploitation of shellfish populations may be an important goal, these areas may serve other economic functions, and may also be important for nature conservation. Moreover, general water quality regulations and biodiversity conservation may require reduction of nutrient inputs or changes in physical properties, which may affect primary production and therefore eventually also production of shellfish. In this project we will develop a coupled physical-biological modelling tool resolving the intricate relationships between benthic communities, pelagic producers, nutrients and physical process. The tool will assist water system managers in deciding how to reconcile intensive shellfish culture with the constraints of environmental policy and biodiversity conservation.

EU-Programme Acronym and Subprogramme Area	FP5-ESD; Environment and sustainable development, Key action 3: Sustainable marine ecosystems (1.1.4.-3.)
Project Type	RTD
Contract Number	EVK3-CT-2002-00071
Co-ordinator	Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science (NL)

Total Eligible Costs (€)	Hereon Eligible Costs (€)	EC Funding for Hereon (€)
3.272.390	596.939

Contact Person at Hereon

Dr. Rolf Riethmüller, Institute for Coastal Research, KOK Phone: +49-4152-87 1550, Fax : +49-4152-87 1525 E-mail contact

Participants

Bolding and Burchard Hydrodynamics GbR (DE), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (ES), Instituto Superior Tecnico (PT), National Environmental Research Institute (DK), Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science (NL), University of Wales-Bangor (UK)

Last Update: 16. April 2021