Beachexploer - am Nordseestrand  © RBorcherding/Schutzstation
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In­ter­na­cio­nal: Beach-Ex­plo­rer & Bal­tic-Ex­plo­rer

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What is at is­sue:

From a mus­sel via crab she­lls to a rub­ber glo­ve – the­re is an aw­ful lot wa­shed up by the North Sea and too little is still known about the­se dis­co­ve­ries. This gap in kno­wled­ge is to be fi­lled by the new Bea­chex­plo­rer In­ter­net por­tal, which is ex­pec­ted go live in March 2014.

Schutzs­ta­tion Wat­ten­meer and the Light­hou­se Foun­da­tion have wor­ked in­ten­si­vely on the de­sign of their joint In­ter­net por­tal in 2013. The Bea­chex­plo­rer of­fers a new type of di­gi­tal cri­te­ria to help de­ter­mi­ne over 1,000 dif­fe­rent ty­pes of beach finds. With just a few cli­cks it is pos­si­ble to clas­sify and iden­tify all kinds of na­tu­ral beach finds and also ma­ri­ne lit­ter. The­re are pro­fi­les and ba­ck­ground in­for­ma­tion on each beach find. In ad­di­tion, the por­tal of­fers the op­por­tu­nity to re­port the finds in a da­ta­ba­se. In this way it will be able to be de­ter­mi­ned whe­re and what things were wa­shed up and whet­her the fre­quency chan­ges with the cli­ma­te or ma­ri­ne pro­tec­tion mea­su­res.

The idea for the Bea­chex­plo­rer pro­ject has exis­ted sin­ce 2006 when it came about at a mee­ting of the Wad­den Sea Edu­ca­tion Cen­tres in Ho­lland. Ho­we­ver, the idea was ahead of its time. Only with the spread of Smartp­ho­nes and the suc­cess of si­mi­lar pro­jects on land, e.g. Or­nit­ho.de and na­tur­gu­cker.de, was pro­ject spon­sors­hip fi­na­lly achie­ved in 2012 from Fe­de­ral funds. The Ger­man Fe­de­ral En­vi­ron­ment Mi­nis­try has now been spon­so­ring Bea­chex­plo­rer from the Fe­de­ral Bio­lo­gi­cal Di­ver­sity Pro­gram­me for over two years. The pro­gram­ming of the web­si­te and an app were put out to ten­der and sin­ce then the­re has been lots of ty­ping and tex­ting behind the sce­nes.

Screenshot BeachExplorer - Northsea
Screenshot BeachExplorer
Screenshot BalticExplorer - Baltic Sea
Screenshot BalticExplorer

Wha­t's hap­pe­ning now:

The pro­ject "Bea­chEx­plo­rer" is win­ner of the Ci­ti­zen Scien­ce com­pe­ti­tion in Science Year 2016/17 - Seas and oceans. Peo­ple wal­king along the beach can use the free app to de­ter­mi­ne their beach fin­dings ima­ge-ba­sed and sub­mit the find data. Whet­her clams, kelp, or plas­tic bottles - the data co­llec­ted hel­ps scien­tists in­ves­ti­ga­te whe­re im­mi­grant, al­ready ex­tinct or in­tro­du­ced spe­cies oc­cur. Plas­tic gar­ba­ge can also be map­ped using the app and are eva­lua­ted in a pro­ject with the Uni­ver­sity of Ol­den­burg. The pro­ject con­vin­ced with both its com­bi­na­tion of scien­ti­fic data co­llec­tion and en­vi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion as well as the ad­dres­sing of cu­rrent so­cie­tal cha­llen­ges, e.g. the po­llu­tion of the oceans by plas­tic was­te.


Bea­chEx­plo­rer wins "Tra­vel Os­car" Golden Palm at the ITB in Ber­lin. At the In­ter­na­tio­nal Tou­rism Ex­chan­ge Ber­lin, the Bea­chEx­plo­rer of the Wad­den Sea Pro­tec­tion Sta­tion won the Gol­den Palm 2017 in the ca­te­gory "Des­ti­na­tions". The jury prai­sed the pro­ject, which was co-fi­nan­ced by the Fe­de­ral Agency for Na­tu­re Con­ser­va­tion be­cau­se it play­fu­lly links na­tu­re con­ser­va­tion, kno­wled­ge and re­crea­tion. The Gol­den Palm awar­ded by GEO SAI­SON ma­ga­zi­ne is also known as "Tou­rism Os­car". For the first time, the ma­ga­zi­ne had awar­ded this most im­por­tant Ger­man tra­vel award not only to or­ga­ni­zers but also for the best in­no­va­tions in the tou­rism in­dus­try as a who­le.

What we have achie­ved:

Sin­ce 2012, the Bea­chex­plo­rer of­fers a di­gi­tal tool for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of more than 1,000 dif­fe­rent spe­cies and float­sam. For plants and ani­mals pro­fi­les were com­pi­led which allows a re­lia­ble de­ter­mi­na­tion of the spe­cies. The Bal­tic Ex­plo­rer was laun­ched in 2016.

Both web­si­tes are avai­la­ble in Ger­man, En­glish, Dutch and Da­nish.

More in­for­ma­tion:

Who has done it