The World Heritage Site
Wadden Sea
Important facts
The Wadden Sea region is a cross-national tidal coastal region along the Dutch, German and Danish North Sea.
It includes different unique features such as a low-lying tidal coast, marshlands and part of the low-lying geest along the mainland. The coast comprise sandy barrier islands, extensive tidal mudflats, salt marshes, beaches, and reclaimed marshlands.
The area represents a home for numerous plant and animal species, including marine mammals such as the harbour seal, grey seal and harbour porpoise.
The Wadden Sea is one of the last remaining large-scale, intertidal ecosystems where ecological processes mostly function undisturbed.
World Heritage Site Wadden Sea
The Wadden Sea was listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009 due to its globally unique geological and ecological values. The site covers the Dutch Wadden Sea Conversation Area, the German Wadden Sea National Parks of Lower Saxony, Hamburg and Schleswig Holstein, and most of the Danish Wadden Sea maritime conservation area (UNESCO, 2024).
The framework of the Trilateral Wadden Sea Cooperatoon, including the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, is responsible for the conservation of this irreplaceable ecosystem, and for its future biodiversity and ecological health (Common Wadden Sea Secretariat, n.d.).
In 1986, the part of the Lower Saxony Wadden Sea was designated as National Park, with extensions in size in 2001 and 2010.
© Photo is property of Sharlene Fechter.
Impacts of climate change
The Wadden Sea is impacted by climate change due to increasing temperatures and sea level rise. Global warming is impacting and challenging the nature and culture of the Wadden Sea coast. As a consequence of draining the land dry, the land sank below normal tide so that now we have a sinking land being confronted with a rising sea. The increasing sea level will also threaten the safety of coastal inhabitants so that the effects of climate change are strongly interlinked with coastal protection and dyke planning and management (Enemark, 2018).
© Photo is property of Sharlene Fechter.
People & the Wadden Sea
The Wadden Sea is an area that is highly impacted by flooding so that the kilometre-long dike has led to a feeling of separation of land and sea in people’s minds. Research studies show that most coastal inhabitants along the Wadden Sea have a formal and local knowledge about the ecosystem as well as a strong attachment to their coastal environment (Fink and Ratter, 2024). They are emotionally attached to their home region and its cultural, socio-economic and environmental values. It is not only the unique and outstanding characteristics of the Wadden Sea that connect people to it, but also its atmosphere of salty and muddy smell, fresh breezing wind, and the sound of seagulls (Döring and Ratter, 2021).
© Photo is property of Sharlene Fechter.
The project
Here you can find details of the project, the time schedule and organisation, and of participation possibilities.
About the locations
Here you can find description of the locations Wadden Sea and Great Barrier Reef and important facts of the regions.
Climate change
Here you can find some information about climate change, sustainability and what you can do on small-scale.
About me
Who am I? Where am I from? How did I get here? And where do I want to go? All about the PhD student and her plans.
Participation information for Workshop Great Barrier Reef
Here you can find all relevant information and data about the workshop at the Great Barrier Reef.
Photos
Here you can find all the beauty of the Wadden Sea and the Great Barrier Reef captured in photographs. And some more expressions of the project, the workshops and much more.
PhD project by Sharlene Fechter at the University of Queensland.
Photos © Sharlene Fechter