National Park Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea in Germany: Where Science Meets the Tides

The National park Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea is a place where history and nature intertwine. Long before today’s station was officially founded, researchers were drawn here, fascinated by the restless tides, the shifting sands, and the life teeming in mudflats and salt marshes. This coastline has always been a living laboratory—one of the oldest sites of marine research in the world.

One of the treasures of the station is its long historical time series and observations. These records provide a rare window into how the ecosystem has changed over time. They form the basis for answering today’s urgent questions about the environment.

The station’s main focus is on the protected areas of the National Park. Here, a wide range of experts work together: specialists in sediments, animals, organisms living on the seafloor and in the water, and scientists studying how these organisms interact with one another. Equally important is the interaction with local people, since human activity and nature are closely connected in this region.

Originally part of the Biological Station Helgoland, the Wadden Sea Station is now integrated into the Alfred-Wegener-Institute. From the very beginning, it has had a culture of hospitality, with a clear policy of supporting guest researchers. Today, around 60% of the station’s resources are dedicated to visiting scientists, making it an important research hub for colleagues from around the world.

The station’s research is fully embedded in the concept of the Wadden Sea National Park and in long-term observation programmes in Germany and across Europe. Climate change, shifts in food webs, bird migration, the impact of fisheries, and the effects of tourism on the ecosystem are central themes. At the same time, researchers here also tackle larger-scale challenges such as warming trends, eutrophication, and other environmental pressures.

The idea of a National Park is simple but powerful: to allow nature to develop freely, with as little human influence as possible. In a densely populated European landscape, however, complete protection is not realistic. Instead, the aim in the Wadden Sea is to reduce human pressures and observe what happens when nature is given more room to shape itself. This requires continuous observation, because only by comparing present data with long historical series can scientists understand how and why changes occur.

Back in the 1980s, the station developed an ecosystem research approach specifically for the Wadden Sea. This meant deciding on the basic parameters needed to describe and monitor its development. Today, around 80 of these parameters are regularly measured as part of a trilateral monitoring programme shared between Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. This coordinated effort has been running for more than 30 years, building one of the most comprehensive pictures of a coastal ecosystem in Europe.

This long tradition of monitoring and ecosystem research naturally led into the framework of Long-Term Ecosystem Research (LTER). The German LTER network brings together National Parks, protected areas, large research institutes, and universities. The Wadden Sea Station played a central role in this process, hosting a milestone meeting in Friedrichstadt in 2025 that paved the way for the foundation of the LTER network the following year.

With its unique combination of history, expertise, and international collaboration, the Wadden Sea Station continues to serve as a cornerstone of long-term ecological research. It is a place where science, nature, and society come together to better understand our changing world—and to protect one of Europe’s most valuable coastal landscapes.

This article is part of the eLTER Sites and Platforms series. It was crafted on the basis of the stories shared by the team members at the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea station. Thank you to everyone, and especially to Christian Buschbaum, Jörn Kohlus and Karen Wiltshire.