News

This publication gives a colourful and well-illustrated account of the operation of the VLIZ druing the calender year 2008. It was the year in which the additional investment subsidy for 2008-2009 was approved. The subsidy allows the purchase and renovation of additional land-based facilities on the East Bank in Oostende, the purchase research equipment for the new research vessel Simon Stevin and...

The MARBOUND database is updated again. In the newest version 3.0 the borders of the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) are tight-fitting to a high resolution shoreline dataset (GSHHS). The new shapefiles, together with their earlier versions, are now available on the MARBOUND website.

The Coastal & Marine WIKI is an innovative source of up-to-date high quality information on coastal management and marine sciences. The more than 1,100 articles in this Internet encyclopaedia are provided by and for coastal professionals.

The media gallery of VLIZ has a new item: the collecion ' Marine stamps’: a remarkable acquisition of more than 2,100 stamps depicting divers marine and maritime themes in an online archive.

The North Sea, the Wadden Sea and the Schelde Delta: all of them are valuable nature areas with scenic wildlife. However this underwater world is invisible for most of us. Discover this sea world now from behind your PC on the webiste www.SeaOnScreen.org.

The 2009 edition of the VLIZ Young Scientists' day on 6 March attracted 158 participants. A day full of presentations of invited speakers, demonstrations, a poster session, a photo contest and a lot of networking with the marine scientists of Flanders and environs. Here you can find all pictures, presentations, the book of abstracts and the winning posters and pictures.

A three-day colloquium (18-20 March 2009) will focus on the impacts of Global Climate Change on heritage in the Low Countries; with special attention on the impacts of rising sea levels and increased river flooding.

Discover who are the laureates of the North Sea Award and the VLIZ Thesis Award for Marine Sciences.

We invite you all to the ninth edition of the ‘VLIZ Young Scientists’ Day’. On this annual marine event, we will welcome ±200 researchers from the North Sea region. This year a broad spectrum of marine and coastal science will be put into the spotlight offering marine scientists the opportunity to get to know each other and to learn about the latest research in an informal, interdisciplinary ‘sea...

In our MARBOUND database an update of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) files is done. The shapefiles, together with their earlier version, are now available on the MARBOUND website.

The Marine Board - ESF invites application for the position of 'Executive Scientific Secretary/Head of Unit' for its Secretariat in Oostende (Belgium).

We have made great progress with the World Register of Marine Species. To inaugurate the register and to create more momentum, a face-to-face meeting with 55 world experts from 17 countries will take place on 20-21 June 2008 at VLIZ.

On the website http://www.vliz.be/projects/classatoceansII/logbook.php' target=_blank >Class@Oceans II students of the high school Atheneum in Ghent (Belgium) virtually join the deep sea expedition of marine scientists to the Gulf of Biscay and the Galicia Bank (26 May - 13 June).

Second BeNCoRe Conference (Belgian Network for Coastal Research) on Friday 30th of May in Leuven: newest developments and applications of GIS will be reviewed

The 2008 edition of the VLIZ Young Scientists' day attracted 192 participants from 52 different research teams. All disciplines from the marine, coastal and estuarine research were represented. It was a dazzling day to get informed about the ins and outs of the newest marine research in Flanders.

The next target is to reach 200,000, or roughly 80% of known marine species, by the end of 2008.

The sea is fished out. 90% of all predator fish at the top of the food web have been fished out in the last couple of decades. Three quarters of all fish stocks over the world are overharvested or are harvested at their maximum rate. Old animals of currently still common species are becoming rare and young animals become sexually mature quicker than ever before. This is exacerbated by the impact...

The large number of registrations compelled us to move to another location in the Leuven city centre. The new location is: auditorium Max Weber - Parkstraat 51, 3000 Leuven. Since there are only a limited number of parking possibilities in the neighbourhood, we strongly advise participants to make use of public transport.