Disturbance-effect relationships applied in an integral Ecological Risk Analysis for the human use of the North Sea

The relationship between the intensity of seven types of human based disturbances and their resulting effects on survival and reproduction of 30+ species were described as a function of increased mortality or reduced reproduction in the report of Jak et al 2000. The numerical values of the parameters in these functions were, as far as possible, estimated on the basis of data from literature, dealing with the sensitivity of the considered species, or otherwise of related species or biota in general, for the regarded disturbanc

Insurance Sector Risk

We model and measure simultaneous large losses of the market value of insurers to understand the impact of shocks on the insurance sector. The downside risk of insurers is explicitly modelled by common and idiosyncratic risk factors. Since reinsurance is important for the capacity of insurers, we measure risk dependence among European insurers and reinsurers. The results point to a relatively low insurance sector wide risk. Dependence among insurers is higher than among reinsurers

Krabbenvisserij op de Noordzee : ecologische achtergronden voor een duurzame afweging

De heer Kramer is voornemens een voor Nederland nieuwe visserij te ontwikkelen: een gerichte visserij op Noordzee krabben met behulp van be-aasde kooien. De vangst wil hij verkopen als vers, levend, duurzaam gevangen en onderscheidend kwaliteitsproduct. Duurzaamheid wil hij nastreven, niet alleen ten behoeve van het bestand, de ecologie en de visserij zelf, maar ook om dit te kunnen communiceren naar potentiële klanten. Om deze reden denkt de heer Kramer met name aan de mogelijkheid om het product MSC te laten certificeren. IMARES is gevraagd om advies te geven hoe de heer Kramer een duurzame noordzeekrabbenvisserij het beste vorm kan geven. IMARES heeft daarop een korte studie verricht, met dit rapport als resultaat

Management plan for the natural resources of the EEZ of the Dutch Caribbean

On the 10th of October 2010 the governmental entity known as the Netherlands Antilles is scheduled to cease to exist. Each island will aquire a new status within the kingdom. Following the declaration of an Exclusive Fishery Zone (EFZ) in 1993, an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) has been declared in the Dutch Caribbean on the tenth of June 2010. The EEZ area concerned, is a large expanse of sea which harbours exceptional biodiversity, and represents an important natural renewable resource potential. The Netherlands Antilles, Aruba and The Netherlands have, therefore, opted to draft a management plan for the EEZ. This initiative began in the year 2005 when the first conference regarding the management of the biodiversity in the EEZ was held. The consensus was that despite a fragmented Dutch Caribbean, the EEZ should always be integrally managed. In 2009 the participants of the second conference confirmed the need for common management and developed common goals, principles and a framework for the management of the Dutch Caribbean waters. Resulting from this conference a management plan was drafted, circulated to all stakeholders and discussed on the 1st of June 2010. Based on the input and feedback received, as well as subsequent correspondence, this final management plan was jointly developed

Second opinion NuStar terminal expansion

In this report a second opinion is developed for the Environmental Impact Assessment NuStar terminal expansion (at St. Eustatius). Only the marine ecology part of the EIA report is evaluated focusing on the impacts reported for marine reserves, reef- and sea-grass habitat, conchs, turtles, marine mammal and fish. The criteria used are: completeness, consistence, transparency, ecological soundness, and relevance of the foreseen impacts resulting from the terminal expansion. When applying these criteria we have found that most of the impact assessments were incomplete (missing information and data, missing expected impacts). Reference base line data has been incompletely collected. Furthermore, many of the assessments were not transparent (based on the information given in the EIA we could not come to the same conclusion). Also we found that the reasoning to come to a conclusion in the EIA was not ecologically sound in many cases (e.g. mobile species are not affected by habitat loss because they can move out the area instead of describing an effect on the distribution area and thus on the abundance or density of the species). In a few cases assessments scored not relevant or were not assessed in a consistent way. Furthermore, we found that not all expected (potential) impacts were assessed and that those assessed were mainly qualitatively assessed only. Data on pressures was incomplete as was data on ecological receptors, and some publically available data was not used. At the end of this report we list these data needs and missing impact assessments

Identification and analysis of interactions between sea use functions

This report focuses on the interactions both positive and negative between offshore wind energy and the non-wind sea use functions.Some sea use functions can co-exist without substantial negative effects. Other combinations are problematic or even impossible and should be avoided. Therefore the interactions of the sea use functions are of importance

Voortoets bestaand gebruik Noordzeekustzone - Hoofdrapport - (m.u.v. visserij en militaire activiteiten)

Een voortoets is uitgevoerd van potentiële effecten van bestaand gebruik (m.u.v. visserij en militaire activiteiten) op instandhoudingsdoelen voor soorten en habitats in de Noordzeekustzone, zoals vereist binnen de Natura 2000 systematiek. In de voortoets is bepaald of een activiteit potentieel negatieve effecten kan hebben op de instandhoudingsdoelen en om wat voor type effecten het gaat

Inventory of current and future presence of non-wind sea use functions

In order to assess the suitability of locations on the Central and Southern North Sea for wind parks present sea use functions should also be taken into account. These sea use functions comprise shipping, oil and gas extraction, fisheries, cables and pipelines, military activities, sand extraction, radar interference and nature conservation. IMARES has collected data on these other sea use functions. Data was gathered from several national institutions, with a good deal of help from our project partners in identifying the best available sources

Risk Diversification by European Financial Conglomerates

We study the dependence between the downside risk of European banks and insurers. Since the downside risk of banks and insurers differs, an interesting question from a supervisory point of view is the risk reduction that derives from diversification within large banks and financial conglomerates. We discuss the limited value of the normal distribution based correlation concept, and propose an alternative measure which better captures the downside dependence given the fat tail property of the risk distribution. This measure is estimated and indicates better diversification benefits for conglomerates versus large banks