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The future Belgian research vessel Belgica was launched for the first time on 11 February 2020 from the Freire Shipyard in Vigo, Spain. An important milestone following the keel laying, the equivalent of the laying of the foundation stone of a building, just under a year ago. The ceremony took place in the presence of the various project partners: the shipyard, the Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO), Defence and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS). Now the ship will be further finished and provided with all the necessary equipment. The delivery of the ship in Zeebrugge is scheduled for the last quarter of this year. Then it will officially be put into service. The cost of the project amounts to approximately 54 million euros (VAT included).

The first launch of a new ship (where the ship is literally transferred from land to water for the first time) is always considered a joyful event, which is celebrated with a formal ceremony. This includes speeches by the various project partners on the Spanish and Belgian sides, the actual launch, the signing of the book of honour and the exchange of gifts.

After a welcome speech by Mr Guillermo Freire, General Manager of Freire Shipyard, the representatives of the Belgian delegation were the first to address those present. Mr Pierre Bruyere, Chairman of the Executive Committee of BELSPO, outlined the path that led to the current collaboration and contract with Freire Shipyard, and stressed that in 2020 we will also be celebrating 50 years of continued funding of marine sciences through BELSPO’s research programmes. The arrival of the new RV Belgica will be a highlight of this celebration. Mrs Patricia Supply, General Director of RBINS, emphasized among other things the long history of marine scientific research at this institute. Many milestones were covered: from the first Belgian Antarctic expedition (1897-1899) led by Adrien de Gerlache, through the first standardised sampling of Belgian marine fauna (1898-1939) by Gustave Gilson, to the accommodation of the MUMM scientific service (Management Unit of the Mathematical Model of the North Sea) within RBINS in 1997. Division-Admiral Yves Dupont, head of the Systems Division of the General Directorate of Material Resources of Defence, then praised the way in which the close cooperation of the past years within the framework of the current RV Belgica led to an increasing knowledge of the sea, which also contributes to the success of the activities of the Navy. The knowledge that the new RV Belgica will acquire, and the continued exchange of scientific and military information, will also remain indispensable in this context.

Finally, the Belgian representatives congratulated Freire Shipyard not only on the successful way in which they are implementing the new RV Belgica project, but also on the 125th anniversary of the shipyard, which will also be celebrated in 2020.

Background and Milestones of the Construction and Naming Process

After 36 years of service, with more than 1,000 scientific expeditions and more than 900,000 kilometres travelled on the counter (>22.5 times around the earth), the current Belgian oceanographic research vessel A962 Belgica (built in 1984) was in need of replacement. Therefore, on 28 October 2016, the federal government decided to build a new modern research vessel. The contract for the design and construction of the ship was awarded by the Minister of Science Policy to the Spanish shipyard Freire Shipyard (Vigo) and the Norwegian ship designer Rolls-Royce Marine AS (which in the meantime became part of the Norwegian Kongsberg Maritime).

The Directorate General Material Resources (DG MR) at the Ministry of Defence has a solid knowledge of tendering procedures. The latest acquisition of two new patrol vessels and the renewal of the mine countermeasure capacity, among other things, fitted nicely with the acquisition of this new research vessel. It therefore went without saying that the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Science continued to work closely together on the acquisition and monitoring of the design and construction process. Since the contract was awarded, a great deal has been achieved: the detailed plans for the vessel were drawn up, scale models were tested, and on 13 February 2019 the cutting of the steel for the construction of the new vessel was started. The keel laying took place on 27 March 2019. Less than a year later, the new RV Belgica can be launched for the first time! Afterwards, the ship will be further finished and provided with all the necessary equipment. At the end of 2020, as planned, it will be delivered in its home port of Zeebrugge to support the marine research community for the next thirty years. After 36 years of loyal service, the current RV Belgica will then end its research activities for good.

In the meantime, the name of the Belgian oceanographic ship was also determined. After a naming competition with several phases (submission of proposals by secondary schools, first selection of admissible names by a professional jury, followed by a public online vote) it became clear that the new ship will honour the Belgian tradition and will also go through life as RV Belgica. The Federal Minister for Science Policy announced this on 25 April 2019 in the presence of the winning class 1LA of Athénée Maurice Destenay in Liège, after which students and minister could enjoy a sea voyage on the current A 962 Belgica.

Future of the New RV Belgica

Compared to its predecessor, the new RV Belgica is larger (71.4 m compared to 50 m) and offers more space to the scientists (a doubling of laboratory space with a capacity to take up to 28 scientists on board). The new RV Belgica will guarantee compliance with our country’s national and international obligations and ensure continuity in the support of marine sciences. In this way, the new RV Belgica will continue the important role of the current A962 Belgica in monitoring the state of the Belgian and surrounding marine waters, as well as in fundamental scientific research.

The new Belgica will also be equipped with state-of-the-art scientific equipment that will allow samples to be taken up to a depth of 5,000 m. The new vessel will also be a silent vessel (important for fisheries research, among other things) with a light ice reinforcement to be able to conduct research in Arctic areas during the summer. Although the North Sea will remain the main focus area of the new vessel, the research area extends further than the current RV Belgica: northwards to above the Arctic Circle, further south including the Mediterranean and Black Seas and westwards to the Atlantic Ocean. The ship will have an autonomy of 30 days and will carry out up to 300 days of research at sea each year.

International Dimension

The international dimension of science will also be given due attention in the agenda of the new RV Belgica. Just as the current RV Belgica already formed part of the European EUROFLEETS network (in which international scientists can obtain shipping time on foreign research vessels), the new RV Belgica will also remain active within this network. Also under the umbrella of the European Marine Board, Belgium (represented in this dossier by Dr. Lieven Naudts, ‘New RV’ project manager for RBINS) participated in a study on the status of the European fleet of research vessels, and helped determine the key role these vessels play now and in the future in the pursuit of a better understanding of the oceans, the functions they can perform for us, and the preconditions within which human activities can be permitted. A ‘European Marine Board Position Paper’ on this theme was published in the autumn of 2019. Since June 2019, Dr. Naudts also assumes the position of chairman of the European Research Vessel Operators group (ERVO).

Thanks to the new RV Belgica and the European framework, Belgium remains at the forefront of sea-related science and technology, helping to ensure that Europe can remain a world leader in marine science and exploration.

The ‘NewRV’ project became reality thanks to the collaboration between the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), the Ministry of Defence and the Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO). The new Belgica will be owned by the Belgian State, represented by the Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO). Operational management will be provided by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) in collaboration with Defence and a private operator.

More information about the ‘NewRV’ project and the technical specifications of the new ship can be consulted at http://www.belspo.be/NewRV, where the construction process can also be followed.

On Saturday 25 January 2020, a hiker was very surprised when he found a peculiar animal skull along the road, with meat and fat remains still on it. The scene of the event was Braine-le-Château, a small green community in the province of Brabant wallon.

Not special? Yes, as it appeared to be the skull of a dolphin, and the hiker happened to be someone with knowledge on the subject. It is the skull of a Common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) or a Striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba), two species whose skulls are not easily distinguishable from each other. These species only rarely end up in the North Sea, their normal Atlantic range extending only to the western part of the English Channel.

How did this skull end up along a small road close to the E19 between Nivelles and Brussels? Wild speculation … That the animal swam up the Scheldt, and then reached the site via tributaries, through locks, can be excluded. That the animal was dragged to the site after being stranded by, for example, a fox, seems equally unlikely.

All information that can contribute to solving this mystery is welcome at kmoreau@naturalsciences.be.

On Wednesday evening 15 January a Sowerby’s beaked whale washed ashore in Ostend. An autopsy showed that the animal was probably still alive when it got into trouble in our coastal waters, no clear cause of death could be determined. Since shallow coastal waters are an unsuitable habitat for beaked whales, reports of the species have always been rare in Belgium. To date, only five previous cases of strandings of beaked whales in Belgium are known.

In the evening of 15 January 2020, late beachgoers found a stranded beaked whale near the eastern breakwater of Ostend. Unfortunately, the animal (which was first reported as a harbour porpoise, and later as a bottlenose dolphin) was already dead, and thanks to an efficient cooperation with the Ostend police, fire brigade and technical services, the carcass could quickly be transferred to the buildings of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) in Ostend. From there, on Thursday morning 16 January, it left for the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Ghent University, where an autopsy was performed around noon. Meanwhile it was clear that it was an immature female of the Sowerby’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon bidens), with a length of 2.88 m and a weight of 240 kg.

Beaked Whales in Belgium

It is not often that pointed beaked dolphins are observed in the North Sea or washed ashore along the North Sea coast, which is not surprising. After all, beaked whales prefer the deep sea, and stay far away from coasts. A large water depth is more important than the absence of land, as the diet of beaked whales consists of all kinds of deep-sea organisms (mainly cephalopods, but also deep-sea fish and crustaceans). Thus, around islands in deep-sea areas, where water depths increase rapidly with distance from the coast, beaked whales can be observed relatively close to the coast. However, the shallow waters of the North Sea (especially the southern part) cannot be considered their familiar habitat.

In Belgium only five previous strandings of Sowerby’s beaked whales are known (and no observations of live animals at sea). In two cases these were mother-calf pairs: in August 1835 in Ostend, in August 1933 in Wenduine (mother + calf), in August 1954 in De Panne (pregnant female), in February 1969 in Heist and in October 1972 in Bredene (mother + calf). All these animals washed ashore alive, but died shortly afterwards (the calf of 1972 at Bredene survived a few days in the Harderwijk dolphinarium, in the Netherlands).

Cause of death?

« The autopsy found no evidence of a recent trauma that could be cited as cause of death (e.g. collision, drowning in a net), and confirmed that the animal was healthy until shortly before death ». explains Jan Haelters, marine biologist and marine mammal expert at RBINS. « It therefore seems plausible that the Ostend beaked whale was still alive when it got into trouble in the coastal waters, and that the grazes on the animal were caused by scraping of the body against the stones of the breakwater. However, nothing was found in the stomach (not even plastic or other items), which illustrates that the animal had not found food for a while and that it had no bright future anyway. All beaked whales on the Belgian list probably underwent the same fate ».

Some of the skulls of Belgian beaked whales are stored at RBINS, which also has an extensive collection of fossil remains of beaked whales. Here they remain available for scientific research (e.g. https://www.naturalsciences.be/en/news/item/2880), and occasional exhibition (e.g. https://www.naturalsciences.be/en/news/item/17771/). The skeleton of the new Ostend beaked whale will be used at the University of Ghent as didactic material in the veterinary training.

Since 2008, 318 offshore wind turbines have been installed in the Belgian part of the North Sea. Both the construction technology and the environmental impact monitoring have changed a lot during the past decade. In a new report, the scientific partners in the monitoring programme summarise what we have learned so far about the longer-term effects onto a variety of ecosystem components, from benthic invertebrates to birds and marine mammals. As time series grow longer, our ability to detect impacts increases. Some striking results include that artificial hard substrata such as wind turbine foundations cannot be considered to be equivalent alternatives for species-rich natural hard substrata, that wind farms deter some bird species but attract others, that the number of stranded harbour porpoises correlates with periods of high intensity underwater sound and that offshore wind farms only subtly changed fishing activity without creating lower catch rates of the main target species.

Evolving construction practices and monitoring programme

From 2008 to 2018, 318 offshore wind turbines with a total installed capacity of 1556 MW have been constructed in the Belgian part of the North Sea. The technology and construction practices have drastically changed during this decade. These changes include an evolution in foundation types (from gravity-based foundations and jacket-foundations to XL monopile wind turbines), an expansion of the geographical area for wind farm construction (towards more offshore waters) and an increase in the size and capacity of the wind turbines (from 3 MW turbines with a 72 m rotor diameter to 8.4 MW turbines with a 164 m rotor diameter).

The monitoring programme WinMon.BE has documented and evaluated the environmental impact of the construction and operational phases of the wind farms during this entire period. It evolved to be the basis for an in depth understanding of longer-term effects onto a variety of ecosystem components, from benthic invertebrates over fish to birds and marine mammals. The new report takes stock of what we have learned so far and zooms into a selection of innovative monitoring and impact mitigation techniques.

Ecosystem impacts

Sediment sampling revealed consistent impacts on the sediment composition and macrobenthic communities (invertebrates living in and on the sea floor, such as worms, shellfish, crustaceans and starfish). Sediment fining was only observed very close to the jacket foundations, while no conclusive results were found in terms of organic enrichment. Higher densities and diversity (species richness) of macrobenthic organisms were found in closer vicinity of the wind turbines. The phenomenon was most pronounced at the Thornton Bank. This confirms the hypothesis that impacts are specific to sites, foundation-types or even individual turbines, which highlights the importance of a continued monitoring of the macrobenthos at the different turbine types.

With respect to the macrofauna that is living/growing on the foundations, a decade of monitoring revealed three succession stages. In a first, relatively short, pioneer stage (~2 years), the installation of the turbine foundations was followed by rapid colonization which differed between locations and foundation types. This was followed by a more diverse intermediate stage characterized by large numbers of suspension feeders (such as Jassa herdmani, a small amphipod crustacean). A third, and possibly climax stage, with a lower species diversity and frilled anemone Metridium senile and blue mussel Mytilus edulis as the dominant species, was reached after nine to ten years. Earlier reports on offshore wind turbines as biodiversity hotspots generally refer to the species-rich second stage of succession, so these should be read with caution as the rich biodiversity now appears to be short-lived and disappears again in a later stage (after about six years in this study). This underlines that artificial hard substrata cannot be considered as an alternative for the species-rich natural hard substrata.

Birds and mammals

Comparing pre-construction seabird distribution data with post-construction distribution data showed a significant avoidance of the wind farm area by northern gannet Sula bassana (-98%), common guillemot Uria aalge (-60-63 %) and razorbill Alca torda (-75-80%). In contrast, attraction to the wind farm could be demonstrated for great cormorants Phalacrocorax carbo, herring gulls Larus argentatus and greater black-backed gulls Larus marinus. Importantly, most of these effects were no longer noticeable at distances over 0.5 km away from the wind farm edges. How these effects impact individual fitness, reproductive success and survival of the birds remains yet unknown.

It is demonstrated that the Belgian offshore wind farms are visited by migrating Nathusius’ pipistrelles Pipistrellus nathusii. The study sheds a preliminary light on the meteorological conditions that favour bat activity in the southern North Sea and the possible risk of colliding with offshore wind turbines. Wind speed (most detections at wind speed of maximally 5 m/s), wind direction (peak in occurrence for east- and southeasterly winds), temperature and barometric pressure seem to influence bat activity in the wind farms. Wind speed seems to have the largest influence on bat activity at sea. These insights offer the possibility to reduce the risk of collision for bats, for example by curtailing the turbines when certain weather conditions occur during the migration season.

The high impulsive sound levels produced during offshore wind farm construction (pile driving) result in displacement and disturbance of harbour porpoises Phocoena phocoena, the most common cetacean in the Southern North Sea. Our analysis reveals a higher occurrence of harbour porpoises strandings on Belgian beaches during months with a high intensity of impulsive sound. This preliminary analysis suggests an increased mortality of harbour porpoise during periods of wind farm construction and will be subject to future in-depth analysis. In the past few years, sound mitigation techniques hence have received a lot of attention and various techniques are now commercially available. In this report, we quantify how Big Bubble Curtains and stationary resonator systems (AdBm Noise Mitigation System) were applied to lower the sound pressure during wind farm construction in Belgian waters.

Impact on fisheries

Because fishing is prohibited within the Belgian offshore wind farms (ca. 140 km² operational), the overall surface area available for fisheries is decreasing as offshore wind farms are proliferating. It was demonstrated that the offshore wind farms only subtly changed the fishing activity (effort, landings and catch rate of the top 10 species, including the main target species sole Solea solea and plaice Pleuronectes platessa of the Belgian and Dutch beam trawl fleet in Belgian waters over the period 2006-2017. Evidently, a remarkable decrease in fishing effort was however observed inside the offshore wind farms, suggesting that local fishermen have adopted efforts to adapt to the exclusion of the wind farm zone from their fishing grounds and have increased their fishing effort at the edges. While catch rates of sole in the vicinity of the operational offshore wind farms remained comparable to catch rates in the wider area, catch rates of plaice were higher around some operational wind farms.

 

The Monitoring Programme WinMon.BE is a cooperation between the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), the Research Institute Nature and Forest (INBO), the Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO) and the Marine Biology Research Group of Ghent University, and is coordinated by the Marine Ecology and Management team (MARECO) of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.

The complete report, as well as the older monitoring reports, can be consulted at http://odnature.naturalsciences.be/mumm/en/windfarms/.