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On behalf of the Bundesamt fuer Seeschifffahrt
und Hydrographie Hamburg und Rostock (BSH), the Baltic Sea Research Institute
Warnemuende (IOW) is conducting the German contribution to the monitoring of
the Baltic marine environment in the framework of the Helsinki agreement (HELCOM).
On March 22nd 1974 all - at that time - seven abutter states of the Baltic Sea
signed a contract package for the protection of the Baltic marine environment.
Article 3 of the convention defines the tasks as:
"The Contracting Parties shall individually or jointly take all appropriate
legislative, administrative or other relevant measures to prevent and eliminate
pollution in order to promote the ecological restoration of the Baltic Sea Area
and the preservation of its ecological balance."
An important part of this treaty is a continuous monitoring of the maritime
environment. From the beginning of the programme, oceanographers from Warnemuende
have participated in it, in the beginning in the Institute of Marine Research
of the GDR Academy of Science, after 1992 on behalf of BSH for the re-united
Germany.
Currently the following tasks are carried out:
- Marine chemical, physical and biological investigations on five regular
annual monitoring cruises
- Establishment and maintenance of the marine environment observation network
(MARNET) in the Baltic Sea area with actually three autonomous measuring stations
- Geological investigations for the mapping of sediment properties and of
the sediment pollutant load
On one hand, the marine monitoring programme requires a routine determination
of the measuring parameters as agreed upon, on the other hand the ensurance
of data quality as well as the development of new measurement technologies and
strategies, including the provision of initial data for numerical models, in
order to better understand the system's reaction on anthropogenic input and
its reduction, and to cover climatological changes.
These investigations are part of both the German Bund/Länder-Messprogramm
für die Meeresumwelt von Nord- und Ostsee (BLMP), as well as the Baltic
Monitoring Programme of HELCOM. The data acquired are used for regular national
and international assessments of the state of the Baltic Sea, are analysed in
numerous publications, and provide the scientific basis for measures to be taken
for the protection of the ecosystem Baltic Sea.
Selected readings are available from cruise reports
and maps offered online by IOW for free public access. BSH is the owner
of all data gathered in the framework of monitoring. Any desired use of these
data by third parties requires the agreement of both BSH
and IOW. The annual hydrographical-chemical
state assessment of the Baltic Sea in published by IOW in "Meereswissenschaftliche
Berichte" and will be available online by BSH beginning in 2004.
Environmental
Monitoring 
