Workshop: How much salt marsh management do we want and need in a changing climate?

Salt marshes constitute an inherent part of the Wadden Sea World Heritage Site. Apart from their natural values, they deliver significant ecosystem services by storing carbon dioxide and for coastal flood defence.

Salt marshes are protected and managed differently in the three Wadden Sea countries Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. Passive (hands-off) and active management, the latter with different levels of intervention, are being conducted for multiple purposes: to enhance biodiversity actively, to support coastal flood defence (Nature based Solution), agriculture, etc. Climate change induced stronger sea level rise will affect salt marshes.

With the workshop "Nature conservation and coastal flood defence: How much salt marsh management do we want and need in a changing climate?" we would like to bring together ecologists, and engineers, site managers, scientists and decision-makers in the field of nature conservation and coastal protection for Wadden Sea salt marsh conservation and management, and enable them to exchange and learn from each other. While we focus on the Wadden Sea area, experts and stakeholders from other regions, in particular from the North Sea Region, are welcome to enrich the discussion.

The final programme of the workshop on 10 October 2024 is here.

An outline of the excursion on 11 October 2024 is here.

In case of question please contact Julia Busch, +49 4421 9108 13.

Presentations

• KEYNOTE: Challenges for salt marsh management in the Wadden Sea - Henk de Vries, Fryske Gea, NL
• Overview on salt marsh management in the Wadden Sea - Robert Zijlstra, chair Expert Group Climate Change Adaptataion/ Rijkswaterstaat, NL

PITCHES ON NATURE CONSERVATION AND COASTAL FLOOD DEFENCE
SESSION 1. Perspectives on salt marsh conservation and management

• Don’t touch me babe - just leave me alone: Ecosystem services of unmanaged salt marshes - Kai Jensen, University of Hamburg, DE
• TRICMA²: Biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution & pathways sustainable management - Chris Smit, University Groningen, NL
• Back to the future - Jan Willem Nieuwenhuis , Waterschap Noorderzijlvest, NL
• Perspective of a green NGO on salt marsh conservation and management - Jannes Fröhlich and Hans Ulrich Rösner, WWF, DE

PITCHES ON NATURE CONSERVATION AND COASTAL FLOOD DEFENCE
SESSION 2: Measures and cases of salt marsh conservation and management

• Practical successes in Lower Saxony: Actively restore different development stages of salt marshes? - Stefanie Nolte, National Park Authority LS, DE
• Experiences from 25 years Mainland Salt marsh Management Plans in Lower Saxony, Germany- Angela Eden, NLWKN, DE
• >100 years of Halligen management in Schleswig-Holstein and ECOHAL - Luisa Rieth, LKN.SH, DE
• A minimalistic approach to Nature based Solutions (NbS) - Karl-Johan Pålsson and Johan Niss, County Administrative Board of Skåne, SE