Over the past decades, improvements in water quality—particularly increased oxygen and reduced nitrogen concentrations—have led to changes in phytoplankton biomass and community composition in the Schelde estuary, a macrotidal estuary in Belgium/SW Netherlands. We argue that these changes have affected SPM dynamics by modifying floc stability and size. Seasonal and spatial variability in SPM flocculation dynamics were examined...

The pre-eutrophic state of marine waters is generally not well known, complicating target setting for management measures to combat eutrophication. We present results from an OSPAR ICG-EMO model assessment to simulate the pre-eutrophic state of North-East Atlantic marine waters. Using an ecosystem model ensemble combined with an observation-based weighting method we derive sophisticated estimates for key eutrophication indicat...

At least two major drivers of phytoplankton production have changed in recent decades in the North Sea: sea surface temperature (SST) has increased by ~ 1.6°C between 1988 and 2014, and the nitrogen and phosphorus loads from surrounding rivers have decreased from the mid‐1980s onward, following reduction policies. Long time series spanning four decades (1975–2015) of nutrients, chlorophyll (Chl), and pH measurements in the Sou...