About the NOAH project

Sustainable development of shelf sea space needs to resolve the conflict between use and protection of natural resources. Extant and new societal demands on shelf sea floors (e.g. wind farming) have impacts on the physical environment, biogeochemistry and biology of this important ecosystem compartment. Competing claims for sea floor space, decisions towards resource exploitation, and assessment of and risks to good environmental status need an information basis. Such a basis is a systematic inventory of properties, functions and services provided by the sea floor on a broad spectrum of spatial and temporal scales. NOAH will develop a comprehensive geo-referenced inventory of seafloor properties in the German Bight ("habitat atlas").

The NOAH consortium gathers expertise in geology, benthic ecology, environmental chemistry and biogeochemistry, environmental modeling, fisheries science, economy and geographical information systems. It includes research institutions and universities as well as federal agencies charged with monitoring and status evaluation. It is coordinated by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht (HZG). The partners are the HZG, the Universität Bremen, the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency, Senckenberg am Meer, the Thünen Institute, the Universität Hamburg and the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. Many of the institutions involved perform applied research into coastal matters in their own institutional programmes, providing for a sustainable collaboration in the future.

NOAH is coordinated by the Institute of Coastal Reseach at Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Germany.