The Rich North Sea – Blauwwind OWF
Provide a Kick-Start for a Population of Ostrea edulis

Photo: The Rich North Sea

The Netherlands
The Rich North Sea – Blauwwind OWF

The goal of this project is to learn about flat oyster broodstock placement and reef development in an offshore wind farm. The primary objective is to assess the potential for successful oyster reproduction, and the establishment of young oysters on the rocks and deposited shell layers surrounding the wind turbines’ base. Additionally, the project aims to comprehensively examine the overall biodiversity developments within this newly constructed wind farm. In 2020, four oyster broodstock structures containing 2,400 flat oysters were deployed in the wind farm of Blauwwind, one of the first government-appointed sites for oyster restoration in the Netherlands. Oysters are positioned in oyster baskets on four specially designed ‘oyster tables’. The tables were placed on the scour protection of four wind turbines.

Partners

  • The Rich North Sea,
  • Blauwind,
  • Bluestream,
  • Van Oord,
  • Eurofins – AquaSense.

Project date: started in October 2020

20 m3 of shell material is added to the scour protection of research monopiles to provide oysters with suitable material to settle.
Photos: The Rich North Sea
Flat oyster spat was seen growing on the adult oysters during the monitoring of 2023.
Oyster table with baskets used in this project to outplace adult oysters.
More information, methods, results, reports, videos, products that were used as well as tips and tricks can be found on the 

Toolbox page of this project.

Contacts:

NORAexpert
Renate Olie
(The Rich North Sea)
r.olie@derijkenoordzee.nl