Sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources is essential for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Priority actions include environmental protection, understanding the role of the ocean in carbon and water cycles, hydrographic mapping and combating pollution. The associated knowledge is needed to secure resources, promote renewable energy, protect human health, build climate resilience and maintain ecosystem services. However, with increasing use of the marine environment, the risk of negative to irreversible environmental impact is increasing. Environmental impact assessments are becoming more complex, and despite incorporating information on geology, bathymetry, hydrodynamics, chemistry and biology, these disciplines are rarely monitored together due to mismatching spatial and temporal scales and poorly understood process relationships. With increasing human activities, indirect cumulative impacts may contribute to biodiversity loss, and need accounting for in restoration efforts. A paradigm shift in monitoring is therefore necessary. For the Belgian part of the North Sea, modelled results are now available on the cumulative dispersal of sediment (plumes) as a result of major bottom-disturbing activities (fishing, aggregate extraction, dredging and dumping). Further research is needed to determine hotspots of deposition from residence time maps of dispersed sediment and to link them to the geological substrate, seabed characteristics and sediment trapping mechanisms. These are essential variables for providing more realistic boundary conditions for physical, biological and chemical impact studies and cumulative impacts, but field validation of the interactions is scarce. The design of such integrated studies is being initiated within the ZAGRI framework, a continuous programme on aggregate extraction incorporating detailed seabed and water column studies. With urgency for the offshore areas, there is a need for a cumulative monitoring approach given the increasing development of wind energy (installation of wind turbines, cable trenching and burial, (temporary) sediment storage, construction of energy islands); however, there is currently no operational measurement framework. Since offshore habitats offer great potential for biodiversity, pro-active research is needed to prevent irreversible impacts. Based on sediment system ’source-to-sink’ thinking, new field strategies can be designed, supported by the latest insights and innovations in the field of seabed and water column measurements. Actively connecting disciplines in monitoring programmes is a crucial step in the evidence-based management of marine resources.