Dutch Coastal zone

Zoobenthos dry weight biomass; Zoobenthos taxonomic abundance

Benthos samplers; sediment dredges

The Port of Rotterdam has planned a westward extension of its harbour area, called Maasvlakte 2.The total area involved is about 2000 hectares. In order to compensate for the loss of nature a marine reserve was created in the Voordelta. a Nature 2000 site. To examine whether the inpact of the extension of Maasvlakte 2 on the flora and fauna is sufficiently compensated by the provided nature compensations a monitoring- and evaluation program (MEP-MV2) was started. Baseline studies (2004, 2005) were carried out to determine t0-situation and to examine if the results are sufficient for the subsequent impact studies. Box-core and benthic dregde samples has been collected for data on the infauna and the epifauna near the seabed. The sampling strategy (402 samples/campaign) was configured by minimizing the ratio between the effort (number of samples) and the statistic robustness (minimum detectable difference). The baseline study resulted in a good estimate of the diversity, total density and biomass of the infauna, and a good impression of the distribution and population structure of individual benthic species that can serve as food for birds. The baseline studies were carried out for Rijkswaterstaat Waterdienst. The monitoring- and evaluation program is carried out for Deltares.

Wageningen Marine Research (Yerseke)
Korringaweg 5
Yerseke

4401 NT
Netherlands