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4 decades of Belgian marine monitoring

uplifting historical data to today's needs

INTRODUCTION

The Belgian scientific community has, in the last four decades, built up considerable expertise in marine sciences (see Compendium Coast and Sea). Numerous scientific expeditions at sea have resulted in a vast quantity of scientific data related to different topics and important publications in the scientific literature about the marine environment of the Belgian Continental Shelf. Many valuable, historic data however still remain inaccessible to the larger scientific community, being available only on paper in various institutions. These sources are essential for understanding long-term changes in the quality of the marine environment. The 4DEMON project aims to centralise, integrate and valorise data on contamination, eutrophication and ocean acidification compiled during expeditions in the BCS over the last four decades, forming an important Belgian scientific heritage.

1000-points map: Map of 1970-1976 sampling grid.

Continuous remote sensing chlorophyll a and turbidity data sets will aid the data interpretation and intercalibration as they have a much higher spatial and temporal resolution.

In the first phase of the project an extensive data inventory will be created and relevant historic data and metadata will be searched for in archives and digitized when needed.

Van Mechelen: Old Cruise summary reports provide useful sampling information.

Final meeting at Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels. (19 June 2018)

Added on: 22 May 2018

During this meeting you will be introduced to our quality checked and intercalibrated datasets (1970s-today) on contaminants, eutrophication and ocean acidification in the Belgian Part of the North Sea, the applied trend analyses methods to study long-term environmental changes and the project outcomes. The used data management tools will be highlighted and a demo will be given of the project data portal where all data is made available to the larger scientific community and policy makers. ...