HIMOM

HIMOM

The HIMOM project, co-funded by the European Commission, has the overall goal to develop a hierarchical Monitoring System for intertidal flats. This system addresses end user such as coastal zone managers, and provides them a flexible set of methods that fits into their particular demands and capabilities. It will be developed along a number of European-wide test sites with the specific aim to detect changes and assess the human influence on these ecosystems.

Estuaries and intertidal sand or mud flats are coastal zone habitats whose functioning reflects changes in the coastal zone in general. Despite the extreme conditions of periodic exposure to air and variations in salinity, these areas are one of the most productive natural ecosystems on Earth, with a gross primary productivity of over 1kg carbon/m² produced each year.
The main organisms contributing to this production is the phytobenthos (algae and seagrasses), which supports a wide variety of grazing organisms, and is the source of food for wading birds, including guest migratory species, and also for commercially viable fish species.
Thus, changes to intertidal ecosystems reatly influence our natural environment far beyond the tidal flat and directly impacts on coastal zone economies.

HIMOM will aim to provide a system of methods, the so-called Hierarchical Monitoring Methods (or HMM), to determine system status and changes which are expressed by biological and physical variations within inter-tidal areas. The HMM will aim to provide a management strategy tailored to the needs of End User involved in activities relating to the sustainable development of tidal flat areas around Europe.
The HMM system will represent a hierarchical suite of activities, ranging from simple ground measurements of biota and physical characteristics to remote sensing of spectral reflectance properties for the analysis of basin scale systems.
The investigated test sites are distributed among Europe and are well-chosen in terms of local relevance and European importance. Beside the testing of the HMM methods and the detection of local changes, each test site will be investigated using satellite remote sensing data in order to detect sediment distribution and biological production as well as to lay the foundation for the investigation of long term changes.
The socio-economic implication of change on management practise will be investigated and socio-economic benefits and related cost-benefit analysis will be presented to interest groups and decision makers.