Areas with special ecological values on the Dutch Continental

6,21

MB

Shelf

105

stron

5534

ID

Rijksinstituut voor Kust en Zee

2006

rok

Contents

Areas with special ecological values on the Dutch Continental Shelf 3

Foreword 5

Acknowledgements 7

Summary 9

Scope and purpose 9

The five areas of the National Spatial Strategy 9

New areas 10

Current Use 10

Future Use 10

Impact of Use 11

1. Introduction 13

1.1 Scope and purpose 13

1.2 Methods 14

1.3 Remarks on this report 14

1.4 Reading Guide 14

2. Selection criteria for the areas 15

2.1 Application of the Birds and the Habitats Directives (BHD) in the EEZ 15

2.2 Elaboration of selection criteria BHD and OSPAR on the DCS 16

The Habitats Directive (HD) 16

The Birds Directive (BD) 17

OSPAR 18

2.3 Determination of boundaries of the areas 18

2.4 Joining in with Germany and the United Kingdom 18

3. Ecological values 19

3.1 Introduction 19

3.2 Abiotic habitat characteristics 19

3.3 Zoobenthos 23

3.4 Fish 24

3.5 Birds 25

Introduction 25

The Coastal Sea 26

Offshore waters 26

Total bird values 29

3.6 Marine mammals 29

Common (or harbour) seal 29

Grey seal 31

Porpoise 31

Other cetaceans 32

3.7 Conclusions 33

4. Use of the North Sea 35

4.1 Methods 35

4.2 Fisheries (Current use, Future Developments, Effects of use) 37

4.3 Shipping (idem) 41

4.4 Military activities (idem) 43

4.5 Recreation and tourism (idem) 45

4.6 Wind energy (idem) 47

4.7 Oil and gas (idem) 49

4.8 Cables and pipelines (idem) 51

4.9 Minerals extraction at the surface, dumping of dredgings and sand suppletion (idem) 53

Areas with special ecological values on the Dutch Continental Shelf 4

5. A closer look at the areas 55

5.1 Reading Guide 55

5.2 Methods of determination of impact of use 55

5.3 The Dogger Bank 56

5.4 The Cleaverbank (idem) 58

5.5 The Central Oyster Grounds (idem) 59

5.6 The Frisian Front (idem) 61

5.7 The Coastal Sea (idem) 63

5.8 Other areas possibly qualifying 67

Zeeuwse Banks

Borkumse Stones

5.9 Impact of use on the described areas with special ecological values 68

5.10 Remaining points of attention 69

References 71

List of figures 77

Glossary 79

Appendix 1 Newly proposed boundaries on PKB-map 10 from the National Spatial Strategy 81

Appendix 2 Impact tables 83

Appendix 3 Coordinates of the corners of the areas with special ecological values, as described in

Figure 5.6 (WGS84 - grid) 100

Colophon 102