Consortium with Laura Govers wins tender from Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management for scaling up seagrass restoration

Dr. Laura Govers of the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES ) will be the Principal Investigator in a consortium that won a tender funded by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. The consortium will focus on a project that aims at advancing intertidal and subtidal eelgrass restoration in the Netherlands. Govers will take the lead in conducting pilot field experiments combined with modelling studies. A total sum of EUR 4.2 million will be made available for this project, and the University of Groningen will receive EUR 940,000 for its scientific contribution. The consortium consists of partners from the University of Groningen, Witteveen+Bos Raadgevende Ingenieurs B.V., Fieldwork Company B.V., and Altenburg & Wymenga.

The Dutch coastal landscape has been heavily altered by human activities, which has changed the functioning of the coastal ecosystems. Seagrass restoration is currently targeted as an approach to enhance biodiversity recovery and improve ecosystem multifunctionality. In the Dutch part of the Wadden Sea, intertidal seagrass has largely disappeared. However, recent research projects – since 2018 – have managed to establish a large-scale eelgrass population on one site in the Dutch Wadden Sea. Building upon this success, this project will study how these successes can be repeated on other suitable locations in the Dutch Wadden Sea. In addition to the Wadden Sea, this project also focuses on seagrass restoration in the Dutch Delta (Grevelingen, Veerse Meer).