Baltic Sea monitoring

The Baltic Sea long-term monitoring programme, with its five annual ship expeditions on the Baltic Sea, is an integral part of the IOW research programme (2024-2033), in particular the research area „Coastal Seas in Transition – Present, Past and Future Perspectives“.  It serves to collect long-term data on the variability of the hydrographic, chemical and biological situation in seasonal change from the western Baltic Sea to the central Baltic Sea and northern regions. The density of the station network is determined by the requirements of physical investigations into the dynamics of water exchange and Baltic Sea circulation. Chemical-biological analyses in individual basins are limited to selected key stations. In addition, permanent measuring stations are also operated in the MARNET measuring network, which add to the spatial image with high temporal resolution, as do BGC-Argo Floats deployed and re-collected during the voyages.

Our long-term monitoring programme has been continously maintaining time series at key stations since 1969. The results are the necessary basis for researching the natural variability oft he ecosystem of the Baltic Sea, the anthropogenic influences, and the effects of climate change, and are therefore indispensable for fulfilling the IOW’s foundation mandate. All data obtained is available to researchers and the general public in the databases maintained by the institute (IOWDB), the Federal Environment Agency (MUDAB), and, at international level, ICES/Helcom. It supports cooperation in the Baltic Sea region and environmental policy assessments of the state of the Baltic Sea ecosystem. On behalf of the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency Hamburg and Rostock (BSH), the measurement programme provides Germany’s contribution to monitoring the marine environment of the Baltic Sea within the framework of the Helsinki Convention (HELCOM).