The monitoring of sand and gravel extraction consists of two parts:
- the monitoring of the activity and
- the monitoring of the exploitation of the marine environment.
Monitoring of the Activity
Each extraction vessel operating in the Belgian part of the North Sea must use the designated application to manage sand extraction declarations. This application logs information such as the date, time, location, and extracted volume for each extraction.
To control and monitor the activity, these vessels are equipped with an automatic recording system (also known as the Electronic Monitoring System or EMS), which records, among other things, the vessel’s position and activities. Additionally, data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) are used as well.
Unannounced inspections at sea or in port are also possible.
Based on the application, the automatic recording system, and the AIS data, the activity is mapped and monitored.
Extraction areas: mined volumes in million m³ per sandbank (zone) based on the data from the registers.
Extraction areas: Detailed mapping of mining quantities (in m3 per ha) based on EMS data.
The extraction areas are depicted in black, the closed sub-areas in red and the Flemish Banks Habitat Directive Area in green.
Monitoring of the impact of mining on the marine environment
Every year, various measurement campaigns are organised aboard the research vessels RV Belgica and RV Simon Stevin in order to observe the consequences of eploitation on the marine environment.
That research is carried out by three bodies:
- the Continental Shelf Service,
- the Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO) and
- the Management Unit of the North Sea Mathematical Models (MUMM – Department of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Science (RBINS)).
The Continental Shelf Service uses a Kongsberg EM3002D multibeam echo sounder aboard the RV Belgica and a Kongsberg Maritime EM2040 multibeam sonar on board of the RV Simon Stevin to generate a detailed mapping of the seabed. These maps allow the impact of mining on the seabed's morphology to be evaluated. The multibeam echo sounder also allows the nature of seabed sediment to be determined. After measurements at sea, the data is subject to detailed study (corrections, controls and filtering) and modelling. After processing the bathymetric data which provides information about depth, it is possible to follow the evolution of the seabed precisely in the sand extraction zones. In this way, it is possible to evaluate the effects of mining.
In addition to the impact on the seabed, the biological impact of sand extraction on the marine environment is investigated in collaboration with ILVO. MUMM studies the ecosystem of the North Sea on the basis of mathematical models (mathematical formulas). If it turns out that a model corresponds to the obser
