Persistent effects of sand extraction on habitats and associated benthic communities in the German Bight

Mielck, Finn; Michaelis, Rune; Hass, H. Christian; Hertel, Sarah; Ganal, Caroline; Armonies, Werner

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-3565-2021

Articles | Volume 18, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-3565-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-3565-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 12

Research article

|

17 Jun 2021

Research article |

| 17 Jun 2021

Persistent effects of sand extraction on habitats and associated benthic communities in the German Bight

Finn Mielck, Rune Michaelis, H. Christian Hass, Sarah Hertel, Caroline Ganal, and Werner Armonies

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-3565-2021-supplement

Data sets

Hydroacoustic and Sediment data collected during AL-519/1 in January 2019 in the German Bight Finn Mielck and Werner Armonies https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.932492

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Short summary

Marine sand mining is becoming more and more important to nourish fragile coastlines that face global change. We investigated the largest sand extraction site in the German Bight. The study reveals that after more than 35 years of mining, the excavation pits are still detectable on the seafloor while the sediment composition has largely changed. The organic communities living in and on the seafloor were strongly decimated, and no recovery is observable towards previous conditions.