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Public consultation for maritime innovation and development platform
On January 19th 2018, the POM West-Vlaanderen has introduced a request for an environmental permit for the exploitation of a maritime innovation and development platform at a distance of about 500 meters of the coast of Ostend (see map). The platform will be exploited until 2033.
The request, the environmental impact study and the non-technical summary can be consulted from March 9th till April 7th 2018, on weekdays from 9.00-17.00h in the offices of MUMM (Gulledelle 100, 1200 Brussels, 4th floor room 431, person to contact: Mia Devolder (02/773 21 27, mdevolder@naturalsciences.be) or in the offices of MUMM in Ostend: 3de en 23ste Linieregimentsplein, 8400 Ostend, person to contact: Jan Haelters (jhaelters@naturalsciences.be, 059/24 20 55) on reservation only.
The electronic version of the documents is also available :
Everybody who is concerned can send his point of view, remarks and objections by registered letter to MUMM, Mia Devolder, Gulledelle 100, 1200 Brussels until April 23th 2018.
The request can also be consulted in the offices of the local authorities of every coastal city, on working days and on appointment.
Environmental impact of offshore windfarms in Belgium
To monitor the ecological impact of wind turbines at sea, our institute coordinates an extensive monitoring programme that detects the environmental effects. The programme is fully operational since 2008. A new report that describes the most recent results, has just become available.
As of 2016, 232 wind turbines are operational in the Belgian Part of the North Sea, with a total capacity of 870 Megawatt. To reach the national target of the production of 13% renewable electricity by 2020, the number of wind turbines in this area is planned to rise to 500. Together these will have a capacity of 2200 Megawatt, covering up to 10 % of the total electricity needs of Belgium. With 238 km² reserved for offshore wind farms in Belgian waters and 344 km² in the adjacent Dutch Borssele area, ecological impacts are inevitable.
The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences coordinates the monitoring, and specifically covers hydro-geomorphology, underwater noise, hard substrate invertebrates, radar detection of seabirds, marine mammals and socio-economic aspects. For soft substrate invertebrates, fish and seabirds, the programme relies on the additional expertise of Ghent University, the Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research (ILVO) and the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO).
Due to the size of the area and the multitude of disciplines, comprehensive monitoring of the ecosystem in the wind farms remains challenging. The scientific follow-up focuses mainly on the disciplines that provide the most relevant information for the management. To safely differentiate between natural and anthropogenically induced variability, the programme is continuously being optimised.
Some remarkable results from the new report
Numbers, densities and biomass of invertebrates and fish living on or associated with the sea floor: the results indicate that the soft sediment ecosystem in between the turbines (at distances > 200 m) has not changed dramatically five to six years after construction, and that species assemblages within the offshore wind farms are mainly structured by temporal variability playing at larger spatial scales (e.g. temperature fluctuations, hydrodynamic changes, plankton blooms). However, plaice seems to be positively affected by the offshore wind farms. This could possibly be linked to locally increased food availability and/or the exclusion of fisheries inside the wind farms.
Biodiversity of natural hard substrates (e.g. gravel beds) versus artificial substrates (e.g. turbine foundations and scour protection): as natural hard substrates harbour a much higher species number and also more unique species than the artificial substrates, it seems that artificial hard substrates cannot act as equal alternatives for the loss of natural hard substrates.
Impact of underwater noise caused by pile driving activities on fish and marine mammals: in a field experiment with caged cod, the scientists detected a steep increase in swim bladder injuries with decreasing distance from the sound source. Additionally, many internal bleedings and a high degree of abnormal swimming behaviour were observed after piling, all hints for a reduced survival rate in the long term. With the current sound limits applicable to Belgian waters, negative effects of this type of underwater noise can occur in fish within a radius of 750 m from the pile driving location. During piling, harbour porpoise detections decreased by up to 75% up to 20 kilometre from the location of the piling event. Simultaneously, porpoise detections nearly doubled at larger distances, which may be due to active attempts of these animals to escape from the underwater noise.
Presence and behaviour of birds: Four species were shown to avoid the wind farm on the Thornton-bank (northern gannet, little gull, black-legged kittiwake and common guillemot), while three others (great black-backed gull, herring gull and sandwich tern) proved to be attracted. When zooming into the behaviour of some species, a continued study of the observed shifts (e.g. decrease of the time spent flying, foraging on fauna growing on the foundations) may shed a new light onto the anticipated collision risk of large gulls with wind turbines. Besides seabirds, also large numbers of non-seabirds are known to migrate at sea. As the victims disappear in the water and cannot be counted, a bird radar is used to unravel the migration patterns. In the future, the recorded bird fluxes will be analysed with an explanatory model, and the collision potential will also be estimated for such birds.
Grey seals versus men
Over the past weeks, horrendous messages appeared in the press about grey seals that ‘shall’ attack swimmers along our coastline. Some nuancing is required.
Those that followed the media over the last two weeks must have noticed it : newspapers, websites and news programs on TV and radio warned for grey seals, which were portrayed as murderous creatures that make our beaches and coastal waters unsafe and will soon start violating tourists.
It all started with an article in La Dernière Heure (DH) « Il va y avoir des attaques de phoques en Belgique » (« There will be attacks of grey seals in Belgium »; Wednesday 9 August), based on an interview with our science communicator Kelle Moreau. Also the front page of the paper unequivocally and alarmistically advertised: « Alerte aux phoques tueurs à la côte belge » (« Warning for killing seals along the Belgian coast »). Het Laatste Nieuws (HLN) copied the message (« Seals will attack swimmers at the coast »), be it in a drastically reduced form in which particularly the sensation remained. Subsequently, the unfortunate message was spread widely, both by the French and the Dutch-speaking press.
We want to nuance a number of things :
The intention of the article in La Dernière Heure was to inform about the strandings of marine mammals and rare fishes on the Flemish beaches in 2016. Predation by grey seals was mentioned as one of the causes of death of stranded harbour porpoises, in the context of which the journalist asked whether it can be excluded that a grey seal would ever attack a human being. Our science communicator responded that such an event cannot be excluded, but that such cases would rather qualify as accidents rather than manifestations of aggression or attempted predation. Grey seals are big and strong animals, with substantial teeth and claws, that could easily wound a human being as a consequence of « disturbance » (of a resting animal on a beach, a mother with cub, …), « confusion » (a foraging animal in turbid water may mistake a human being for something else?) or even of playful behaviour. However, our biologists believe that the chance of such an interaction with a grey seal in our waters remains very small (but exists), and that panic is unnecessary. We must definitely not avoid our coastal waters and beaches, and the grey seal is absolutely not an unwanted guest on our coast. The only message is that we should realise that grey seals are predators, that we should have a healthy respect for these animals, and best leave them alone.
The fact that grey seals have harbour porpoises on their menu was also shown for the first time by researchers of our institute, after a few porpoises washed ashore in 2011 with wounds that – after analysis – appeared to have been inflicted by grey seals. Initially, this news caused great disbelief. Only after confirmation by analyses of foreign scientists, this new phenomenon was widely accepted.
Annual report strandings 2016
As part of the implementation of the Royal Decree on marine species protection in the Belgian national waters, annual reports on observations and strandings of marine mammals in Belgium are compiled.
The new marine mammal report (download on http://www.marinemammals.be/reports) presents an overview of marine mammals and remarkable fish washed ashore in Belgium in 2016. It also focusses on the causes of death, revalidation and release of animals that were taken into care, and briefly introduces the research on the influence of offshore windmill parks on the harbour porpoise.
The most remarkable stranding of 2016 undoubtedly concerned a narwhal, an Arctic animal that was last observed in the North Sea almost 70 years ago. Also two humpback whales were seen, and a basking shark and two ocean sunfishes washed ashore.
With 137 animals, the number of harbour porpoises that washed ashore was again very high. The major causes of death were incidental catch in fishing gear and predation by grey seals. Harbour porpoises were shown to avoid an area up to a distance of 20 km during the construction of offshore wind turbines.
White-beaked dolphins were reported on one day only, in contrast to bottlenose dolphins that were regular and prominent guests again. In April a severely decomposed male bottlenose dolphin washed ashore, followed by a heavily decomposed dolphin along the Scheldt a few days later. The species could not be determined anymore.
The number of strandings of dead and dying seals remained similar to previous years: six harbour seals, 11 grey and 12 unidentified seals. SEA LIFE Blankenberge took care of record high numbers: 15 grey and 24 common seals, including an albino animal. No less than 12 grey and 20 common seals could be returned to the wild after revalidation.
Monitoring of Sulphur emissions from ships: soon over the entire North Sea?
In the Activity Report 2016 of our North Sea aerial survey programme published earlier this year, MUMM already mentioned the recent purchase of a new instrument, a so-called sniffer sensor, that allows MUMM to monitor the sulphur emissions from ships at sea with the surveillance aircraft.
These new “sulphur monitoring flights” of MUMM were initiated in the framework of the European pilot project ‘CompMon’, with the aim to facilitate and contribute to the enforcement of the stringent sulphur emission regulations as determined in Annex VI of the MARPOL 73/78 Convention and the European Sulphur Directive. The limitation of sulphur emissions from ships at sea is in fact a European top priority, for various important public health related and environmental reasons (fine dust, acid rain, climate change).
In 2016 MUMM monitored the sulphur emission of ca. 1300 ships at sea. For 120 of these ships suspect sulphur values have been measured (= ca. 10%). Each suspicious observation was systematically reported to the maritime inspection service of the Belgian Directorate-General for Shipping, for a further follow-up in port – if needed in cooperation with other competent port authorities in the framework of the European ‘Port State Control’ network.
The results and experiences gained from these flights have now been presented and discussed at the annual meeting of OTSOPA, the technical working group of the Bonn Agreement, held in Norway at the end of May 2017. The Bonn Agreement is the mechanism by which the North Sea States, and the European Union, work together to prevent and combat maritime pollution in the North Sea. It is under this agreement that the aerial surveillance efforts above the North Sea have been coordinated since the early ‘90s, although the initial aim was mainly to detect and combat oil spills at sea.
Following MUMM’s presentation on the remarkable results of the sulphur monitoring flights above the North Sea, OTSOPA agreed on the importance of this new type of surveillance mission. OTSOPA furthermore decided to submit a request to the next Contracting Parties meeting of the Bonn Agreement later this year to approve the start-up of sub-regional sulphur emission monitoring operations above the entire North Sea, coordinated in the framework of this agreement.
Earlier in May 2017, MUMM also presented the same offshore sulphur monitoring results to the annual meeting of the North Sea Network of Investigators and Prosecutors (NSN), who have decided to give a high priority to the prosecution of sulphur emission offences.
With these international efforts our country currently plays a leading role on the matter. In the meantime, MUMM continues to execute regular sulphur monitoring flights at sea.
Belgium’s Secretary of State for the North Sea Philippe De Backer reacts very positively: “With these controls Belgium really performs a pioneer role. It helps us keeping our North Sea clean. Also internationally these efforts are being noticed. It is therefore good that these controls will be extended over the entire North Sea region.”
Back to the North !
The first two Bewick’s Swans equipped with a GPS tag during past summer in the tundra of Yamal but at the same site a few days apart, have very recently left their wintering site separated one of the other by … 8000 km!
The first to take the northern route is the adult female 832X. She left Poyang Lake area (southeast China) on 03/03/2016. She had arrived in the region on 25/11/2015 and has successively visited the Sai Hu lakes, Longhu and Longgan lakes. So she stayed a total 99 days near the Yangtze River before resuming her migration back to the north.
Between 03/03/2016 and 07/03/2016, 832X has traveled 1400 km to the north-northeast with a maximum peak of 215 km in 3 hours. Since she is in halt on the Yellow River in the district of Donghan, 250 km from the border with Mongolia. This is exactly where 865X, another Bewick’s Swan from Yamal having wintered in the Yangtze region, had stopped in last autumn migration.
The second Bewick who started the spring migration is 854X. It is a second-winter male that had (after years of questions !) indicated us the route to the Evros Delta. 854X had arrived in the Evros on 12/12/2015.
After 86 days of back and forth between Greece and Turkey, the Evros river making the border between the two countries, 854X flew in the late afternoon of 07/03/2016, heading northeast. In a step of 12 hours of continuous flight and a peak of 265 km traveled in 3 hours, 854X flew over the Black Sea in almost straight line to land on the morning of 08/03/2016 in the Nature Reserve of Chernomorsky, just east of the Bay of Tendra, Ukraine.
Twelve hours later, 854X set off again, this time eastward, for a flight of three hours maximum. At nightfall, he landed at sea, a few km off the Gulf of Khorli, a site where gather in the summer thousands of Mute Swans in flightless moult.
The GPS positions received suggests that during the night, 854X drifted 11 km towards the east. At dawn on 09/03/2016, he took off for a short 90 km flight which led he to the impressive hyper saline lagoons of Sivash, north of Crimea. He stayed there four days and was located several times in cropland area close to water bodies. Most likely he was feeding there.
854X then resumed flight to the east for about 40 km. New stop at night, but this time on Sea of Azov. And new drift during the night, up to 24 km from the coast this time. This morning, 14/03/2016, 854X resumed its journey shortly after 05:00 am (local time) always towards the east. Six hours later he was located 290 km to the east, probably when flying. 854X was then close to Beisug liman where he has stopped 51 days during post-breeding migration 2015, prior to arrive in the Evros Delta. Will he halt there again or will he continue his journey eastward to Russia and Kazakhstan?
To be continued !
Bewick ‘s Swan with yellow neckband and Lesser white-fronted Geese
February 10, 6:50, like every morning watching the swan roost begins at sunrise. Thousands of swans, mainly Bewick, gathered to spend the night safely in the marshes of Dimitriades. The flock lies on 1 km; this is a very impressive sight!
Most swans are swimming in shallow water, a minority is standing on the flooded mudflats. The contacts are intense, swans are very social birds outside the breeding season. They constantly vocalize. Their calls are very melodious and reach their climax when taking off. Flocks follow each other at regular interval.
8:03, two families of Bewick’s Swans take flight from the southwest corner of the roost. In doing so, they give off the view to another small group. He’s there ! The Bewick’s Swan with the yellow neckband observed there 5 days ago. But at the time the code could not be read. It makes a lot less windy today and the distance is only 400 m. It will works! After a few minutes of scrutinizing with the telescope at 70x zoom, the 4-characters code appears. No more doubts, it’s a Bewick’s Swan ringed in the Netherlands. Encoding the code on geese.org platform that compiles data from swans and geese tagging programs in Europe allows to immediately know its origin. That swan was marked on 26/12/2014 in Noord Brabant, near the city of s’Hertogenbosch. He quickly left the area to continue its wintering in Belgium, 50 km south-west, in the north of the province of Antwerp where he remained until 01/03/2015. He will then be observed on 31/03/2015 in Lithuania, when migrating to Siberia. And next winter he is now in Greece.
This is the third Bewick’s Swan ringed in the Netherlands we are seeing in the Evros Delta. The previous was on 19/02/2010. Is this a new indication of the fact that the Bewick’s Swans traditionally wintering in this country are now deserting it ? But if that’s the case (3 observations do not allow to draw conclusions) why such a phenomenon? What happens in the Netherlands making that the country is no more favoured by the Bewick’s Swans ? Obviously, no one knows for sure.
Next objective of the day : search for Lesser white-fronted Geese, another species in decline which also winters in the Evros Delta.
Ornithologists of the Forest Research Institute of Thessaloniki, a partner to the program on Bewick’s Swan, study their diet by analyzing the cell fragments of plants, extracted from droppings collected in the marsh Dimitriades. What a program!
The foraging sites of 854X
09/02/2016, the objective of the day: to identify the characteristics of the foraging sites of 854X, the Bewick’s Swan “sentinel” equipped with a GPS transmitter in Siberia.
The data transmitted from the arrival of the swan in the Delta of Evros indicate that it forage exclusively in the Turkish part of the Delta. The reason is simple: this area is covered by 99% of rice fields. Natural habitats, which contribute to the exceptional biodiversity of the Greek part of the Delta, were completely destroyed on the Turkish side. It is striking to observe a satellite map: east of the river, everything is a deep green: it is the rice fields. While to the west, a patchwork of colors of various shapes and sizes can be observed. There are obviously areas that are cultivated on the Greek part but not intensely while in coastal areas, salt marshes and lagoons stretch out of sight.
Let’s go to Turkey. A part of the rice fields is completely dry, the stubbles left after harvest line up in endless furrows. Another part is partially flooded, the bottom of the grooves being filled with water probably consecutively to the rains of the past week. A third part is completely under water, forming lakes of several km². It is on these flooded fields that gathers the majority of swans. Part of the area cannot yet be surveyed because it is under military control.
Most swans are found together in 4 huge flocks of 1500 to 4000 individuals. Small groups with a few dozen to a few hundred swans are scattered here and there. The large flocks are composed of three species of swans: Mute, Bewick’s and Whooper. All are feeding on the roots of the rice plants that were planted last spring. All sites where 854X has been located, and that could be visited, are indeed flooded rice fields.
Apart from swans, there is almost no other birds in this part of the Delta. This is probably the consequence of the disappearance of natural habitats and the development of rice monoculture. A very important hunting pressure is another explanation: at regular intervals in each rice field one may see hunting huts when gun cartridges litter the ground by the hundreds. At 14:45 in the middle of a group of 2,700 swans feeding in a flooded rice field near the village of Enes, there he is. 854X is carefully preening.
It’s a chance because yesterday it was located 26 km north, near the village of Ipsala. There are exactly 179 days we were together at the mouth of the river Yuribey on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.
A day is not another
It freezes this Monday 8 February 2016 at the border between Europe and Turkey. The day is dedicated to count waterfowl – swans, geese, ducks, waders and gulls – and raptors wintering in the National Park of the Evros Delta. Among these have been observed today: 2 White-tailed Eagles, two Imperial Eagles, about 20 Greater spotted Eagles, sixty Common Buzzards and as many Marsh Harriers, a Peregrine Falcon, about 15 Kestrels, a dozen European Sparrowhawks. The two Rough-legged Buzzards discovered the day before yesterday were no longer found.
Bewick’s Swans are of course always under close monitoring and the follow up of the arrival to the roosts starts at 16:00 from the dyke that separates the Drana Lagoon from the marshy area of Dimitriades. When arriving 7 Mute Swans were sleepy in the middle of the flooded area where past Friday 8500 swans from three species where gathering together. No movement or so until almost 17:15 when the young Imperial Eagle observed in the morning flies over the area towards the hills of Loutros where it roosts. 17:30, arrival of the first 8 Bewick’s Swans. The following 12 arrive at 17:35. At 17:46 p.m., it’s raining Ruddy Shelducks. 17:58 p.m. a flock of 28 Bewick’s Swans comes gently to rest on the water. 18:08 p.m., it is completely dark, end of counting. The total is doing 48 Bewick’s Swans. Yesterday they were in 1240, before yesterday 1400 and Friday 8400! Have the Bewick’s Swans wintering in the Evros Delta already started their spring migration to the tundra of Siberia?
The data transmitted by the swan 854X equipped with a GPS transmitter in Yamal are helping to understand these differences. Analysis of 854X positions at 02:00 am indicates that there is more of that one swan roost in the Evros Delta. Between 12 December 2015, the date of his arrival in Greece and 12 January 2016, 854X has used 8 different roosts, 4 located in Greece and 4 in Turkey. During this first month of presence, 854X slept 23 times in Greece and 8 in Turkey. So there is clearly a different distribution of swans between the roosts and between the nights. It is unknown why exactly, but we can assume that the weather is an important factor. This is one explanation to the variations in counts.
Another parameter explaining these disparities between the number of swans counted at Dimitriades roost is the timing of leaving foraging site at the end of the days. GPS locations of 854X and direct observations with a telescope indicate that foraging site are almost exclusively located in the Turkish part of the Delta. By the way a visit is planned in this area during the coming days.
Today 854X was still in Turkey at 19:00. Whereas it is dark at 18:10, so it arrived in the dark at the roost and has accordingly not been detected and therefore not been counted. Yesterday, 7 February, it was located at 19:00 7 km east of the roost; most likely flying. The same that today: he came to the roost in the dark and could not be recorded. Day before yesterday he was still in Turkey at 18:00 and was at the roost at 19:00. He returned earlier that day but still after or just after dark. And on 5 February, the story is already known, 854X and thousands of fellows spent all day in the roost of Dimitriades. They just have not been feeding this day. This most probably allowed the record count.
All this did not help to resight the swan with the yellow neckband observed, but not decrypted, on 5 February. It cannot more be found!