DAM project SpaCeParti relies on living labs to resolve conflicts of useIn the western Baltic Sea, coastal fisheries are closely linked to the economic development of coastal communities and the impacts of climate change with the increasing loss of biodiversity. For a sustainable future of fisheries, multiple interests need to be considered. These include spatial and resource conflicts, which need to be recognized between different user groups and resolved through joint dialogue. The SpaCeParti project, coordinated by the Center for Ocean and Society at Kiel University, aims to contribute to t ..read more

Professor Dr. Martin Visbeck becomes a member of the German Science and Humanities Council (Wissenschaftsrat)Professor Dr. Martin Visbeck, Professor at Kiel University and head of the research unit Physical Oceanography at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel has been appointed to the German Science and Humanities Council by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier as of 1 February 2022. Until 2025, the marine researcher will support the 32-member scientific commission of this body, which deals with a broad spectrum of science policy issues ranging from the structure of the univers ..read more

Historical sources indicate that overfishing of the Baltic herring began over 500 years ago and continues to have an impact today The collapse of the important herring fishery in the western Baltic Sea towards the end of the 16th century was the result of a combination of overfishing and climate change. The researchers see similarities in the current development of German fish stocks. A team of fisheries economists, historians and biologists from Kiel University (CAU), the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Leipzig University has reconstructed herring catch levels i ..read more

Current marine knowledge made understandable in the new World Ocean ReviewMore than ten years after the first edition of the World Ocean Review (WOR), maribus gGmbH and their scientific partners, the German Marine Research Consortium (KDM) and the Kiel Future Ocean Network, are again publishing a WOR that presents the overall situation of the oceans. Its conclusion: only together can we achieve a solution for the future of the ocean in which protection and use are compatible. In order to achieve this, important transformations must be initiated quickly. The new WOR is now available to order or ..read more

New policy brief “Nourishing Blue Economy and Sharing Ocean Knowledge”To better understand, protect, sustainably use the ocean and maintain its life-sustaining functions, reliable information about major processes and marine life is crucial. Therefore, ten projects funded by the European Union joined forces to develop a joint policy brief for sustainable ocean observation and management. Key recommendations regard long-term funding for observations and access to standardised data for different users, as well as capacity development and inclusive policy processes. The initiative was lead by the ..read more

New sailing drone complements observation network in the tropical AtlanticA signal-red autonomous small sailboat is currently cruising the tropical Atlantic to collect detailed information about carbon dioxide concentrations at the ocean surface. The sailing drone, which is being used for the first time as part of the European project EuroSea and the project SAILDRONE, both led by GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, is intended to help improve ocean observation in the tropical Atlantic. Its data can also be used for projections of future changes and to better protect and sustainab ..read more

Major project on digitalisation of the oceans among 16 consortia to win federal fundingAdvancing digitalisation of the oceans with "MARISPACE-X: Smart Maritime Sensor Data Space X" – this is the goal of a consortium from science and industry. Kiel University is represented by seven working groups under the leadership of Matthias Renz, Archaeoinformatics – Data Science (Institute for Informatics ..read more

Researchers discover fresh water in the Mediterranean SeaThere is enough water on our planet, but by far the largest part is salt water that is unsuitable as drinking water. Therefore, especially in dry regions of the earth, the search for new freshwater resources is very active. An international team of researchers let by the University of Malta and GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel has now discovered strong evidence of a groundwater deposit off the coast of Malta. The results of their investigations have now been published in the international journal Geophysical Research Lette ..read more

Joint press release of ifW, GEOMAR and iDivCoastal ecosystems such as seagrass meadows, salt marshes and mangrove forests are valuable to humans in many ways. In particular, they store carbon - and do so with a much higher surface density than forests, for example. They thus make an important contribution to mitigating climate change. Australia's coastal ecosystems alone, which absorb a particularly large amount of CO2 from the atmosphere, save the rest of the world climate-related costs of around 23 billion US dollar a year. This is according to calculations just published by researchers at t ..read more

Arved Fuchs and GEOMAR cooperate on the "OceanChange2021" expeditionMarine research often has something to do with adventure, because there is still a lot to discover in the world's oceans. The famous German adventurer Arved Fuchs' combines adventure and research in his OceanChange 2021 expedition in a very special way. Today, Fuchs heads off from Kiel with his sailing ship Dagmar Aaen for the northern North Atlantic. During the three-month expedition, with which Arved Fuchs wants in particular draw attention to climate change, he will continuously carry out measurements for GEOMAR Helmholtz C ..read more