News and announcements

05 February 2010 — Belgica programme 2010

In 2010, the Belgica will also be there for science. 39 scientific campaigns will be executed by scientists from 15 research units from all over the country, for their (inter)national research programmes.

You can mark these days in your agenda: on 11 and 12 September the Belgica will be open to the public, in the city of Bruges!

The programme of 2010 looks very promising!

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04 February 2010 — New Commander for the Belgica

On Friday, January 29th, the official change of command ceremony of the A962 Belgica occurred in the naval base of Zeebrugge. Commander Luc De Maesschalck was appointed as the new commander of the oceanographic research vessel.

In his leaving speech Commander Joosen, who was responsible for the ship during the last two and a half years, thanked his crew for the pleasant cooperation. Commander De Maesschalck has left on Monday for his first campaign with the Belgica.

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26 January 2010 — Public consultation on selection of potential Habitat areas

From 25 January to 28 February 2010, the Federal Public Service for Health, Food chain safety and the Environment is organising a public consultation on the selection of potential European Habitat areas in the Belgian part of the North Sea.

In 2009 E. Schouppe, Secretary of State for the marine environment, asked the Marine Environment service to organise a scientific study to obtain a list of potential Habitat areas. This study has been made by different scientific institutions (MUMM, INBO, ILVO, Ghent University).

The EU Habitat directive obliges the member states to use only scientific criteria to select potential Habitat areas. There are important socio-economic aspects to this study, but in this phase of the procedure, only scientific remarks can be taken into account during this public consultation. The socio-economic aspects will be handled later, in the phase of management procedures.

The Marine Environment service invites you to give your remarks on this study. The remarks will be evaluated and the Secretary of State will be advised to propose potential Habitat areas to the European Commission.

Information on public consultation and study (Dutch and French)

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25 January 2010 — Permit for dumping dredged material

Secretary of State Mr Schouppe has renewed the permit for dumping dredged material in Belgian marine areas until 2011. The former permit, necessary following the Royal Decree of 12th March 2000, was valid till the end of 2009. The Secretary of State based his decision on the synthesis report of MUMM, in collaboration with “ILVO”, “Afdeling Kust”, “Afdeling Maritieme Toegang” and “Waterbouwkundig Laboratorium”.

Dredging has to be carried out to maintain the maritime access routes to the Belgian coastal ports and the depth of the coastal ports. This is the responsibility of the Flemish Region. The large quantities of dredged material resulting from these activities are dumped back in the sea. This procedure is the responsibility of the federal environment department.

Intensity map for dredging and dumping material in 2008

Synthesis report

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14 January 2010 — ICES symposium on climate change in Brussels

From 12-14 January 2010, an ICES workshop on How Models help us to understand Climate Change Evolution and Impacts in the Regional Oceans is being held at MUMM. This workshop is essential to respond to many questions that are crucial to anticipate changes in the ecosystems as a consequence of climate change and when possible adopt the policies for adaptation or mitigation.

MUMM invited 15 experts from around the North Atlantic to tackle different issues:

- Review the state of the art in modelling the feedbacks of the ocean on climate change;

- Modeling the effects of climate change at regional scales;

- Comparison and validation of models for predicting effects of climate change at regional scales. Identify how ICES data can contribute to validate the models;
- How the response of the ecosystems to climate change can be anticipated using models;

- Modeling of changes in all trophic levels.

The outcome of the workshop will be one of the chapters in the ICES position paper on climate change.

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