Belgium

Contacts

LifeWatch Belgium

  • francisco.hernandez[at]vliz.be
  • +32 59 34 21 30

Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ),
InnovOcean site,
Wandelaarkaai 7, 8400 Ostend, Belgium

LifeWatch Belgium is a distributed virtual laboratory and is used for biodiversity research and climatological and environmental impact studies. The Belgian LifeWatch node aims to:

  • Design a central LifeWatch Taxonomic Backbone
  • Construct a Belgian LifeWatch Observatory
  • Develop a Belgian LifeWatch e-Lab and Marine VRE
  • Conduct data archaeology
  • Develop an ecotopes database for Belgium
  • Monitor and synthesis ecosystem dynamic descriptors
  • Build an Antarctic Biogeographic Information System (AntaBIS)
  • Develop a Barcoding Facility for Organisms and tissues of Policy Concern (BOPCo).

Download the leaflet to know more about LifeWatch Belgium.

Organisation

Belgium makes varied and complementary in-kind contributions to LifeWatch. These are implemented in the form of long-lasting projects by various research centres and universities distributed throughout the country and supported by each respective political authority.

LifeWatch Flanders Team (funded through FWO Vlaanderen)

  • Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) (coordinator of LifeWatch Belgium)
  • Research Institute for Nature and Forests (INBO)

LifeWatch Wallonia-Brussels Team (funded through the Wallonia-Brussels Federation)

  • Earth and Life Institute (UcL)
  • Biosystems Engineering Department (ULg-Gembloux ABT)

Belgian Federal Institutes (funded through the Belgian Science policy office (Belspo)

  • Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS)
  • Royal Museum of Central Africa (RMCA)
  • Belgian Biodiversity Platform (BBPf) (which acts as the Belgian LifeWatch Support Committee)

http://lifewatch.be/en/project-belgian-lifewatch-infrastructure

Activities

Access to regional and global biodiversity data systems is facilitated by means of several data services (Belgian LifeWatch E-lab), data publication,  marine and non-marine data archaeology and the construction of a local marine-freshwater-terrestrial observatory.

Furthermore, a central Taxonomic Backbone combines taxonomic, biogeographical, trait and genomic data and disseminates this via web services.

Four ecosystem dynamic descriptors are derived from satellite images. Their weekly average profiles are calculated at a European scale. Furthermore, a database describing homogeneous units of the landscape,ecotopes, has been developed.

Biodiversity.aq is building an Antarctic Biodiversity Information System (AntaBIS), as a thematic LifeWatch virtual laboratory.

The Barcoding facility for Organisms and tissues of Policy Concern (BOPCo) project is setting up a virtual laboratory that uses molecular techniques to identify unknown biological material to species/population level.

Projects

ANERIS
Aneris

In ANERIS, operAtional seNsing lifE technologies for maRIne ecosystemS, we propose to develop the next generation of scientific instrumentation tools and methods for sensing marine-life. The design of the new instruments and methods will integrate different types of marine life-sensing technologies: genomics, imaging-biooptics and participatory sciences. The technologies will be implemented in a codesign framework, involving all the interested stakeholders: academia, industry, civil society and government. The project proposes the concept of Operational Marine Biology (OMB), understood, as a biodiversity information system for systematic and long-term routine measurements of the ocean and coastal life, and their rapid interpretation and dissemination. The production of FAIR Operational Marine Biology data will be carried out in a distributed IT infrastructure built from edge and cloud compute nodes, to be connected with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The technologies will be tested and validated in different case studies, involving the ANERIS innovations, commercial instruments to be improved and different world-class research infrastructures (RI). The project will develop a training program for the operation and use of these new solutions for all the involved stakeholders and particularly the research infrastructures staff. Overall, the project proposes to benefit all the actors involved in the quintuple helix framework of innovation, promoting innovation and knowledge sharing among them: (1) the academy with new life-sensing technologies to use in research; (2) the industry with new technologies and methods to exploit; (3) the governments, with improved observational systems and data products to be used in environmental management directives; (4) the civil society, empowered through the proposed participative technologies and large collaborative networks and (5) the Research Infrastructures, integrating new generation of sensing instruments and methods, and their staff being trained on those new technologies.

MARBEFES
MARBEFES (MARine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning leading to Ecosystem Services) aims to evaluate and characterise the links between marine biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, ecosystem services and the resulting societal goods and benefits in coastal communities. The results will be captured in easy-to-use tools to help practitioners and policy to maximise the ecological value and optimise a sustainable socio-economic use of the marine system for current and future generations.
GEANS
GEANS

The GEANS project (Genetic tool for Ecosystem health Assessment in the North Sea region) aims to harmonise and consolidate existing DNA-based methods, to ensure their application for assessing ecosystem health in the North Sea environment. Synergies are built with the marine genomics observatory activities as part of the LifeWatch observatory.

Blue-Cloud
Blue Cloud

Blue-Cloud: Piloting innovative services for Marine Research & the Blue Economy. EurOBIS is one of the data infrastructures in the Blue-Cloud project. LifeWatch Belgium observation data is used in demonstrator #1 on zoo and phytoplankton Essential Ocean Variables.

Jerico S3
Jerico S3

Jerico S3: Joint European Research Infrastructure of Coastal Observatories: Science, Service, Sustainability. LifeWatch observatory (plankton, phytoplankton) systems and data management expertise (EurOBIS) used in the project.

DiSSCo Flanders
DiSSCo Flanders

DiSSCo Flanders: Towards a collection management infrastructure for Flanders. LifeWatch Species Information Backbone as in-kind contribution to DiSSCo (Belgium).

Mission Atlantic
Mission Atlantic

ETN as demonstrator and LifeWatch rstudio environment as demonstrator environment.

ETN
ETN

The ETN (European Tracking Network) is an online platform for tracking data from electronic tagging. The ETN data portal is developed by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) as part of the Flemish contribution to LifeWatch.

Category

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Bulgaria

The Bulgarian National Distributed Centre is represented by the  Agricultural University-Plovdiv.

To know more about how Bulgaria contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Visit Bulgaria webpage
Spain

The Spanish National Distributed Centre is supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the Regional Government of Andalusia and the Guadalquivir River Basin Authority (Ministry for Ecological Transition-MITECO). Moreover, Spain is the hosting Member State of LifeWatch ERIC, the location of its Statutory Seat & ICT e-Infrastructure Technical Office (LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities). 

To know more about how Spain contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Visit Spain webpage
Slovenia

The Slovenian National Distributed Centre is led by the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU). It focuses on the development of technological solutions in the field of biodiversity and socio-ecosystem research.

To know more about how Slovenia contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Visit Slovenia webpage
Portugal

The Portuguese National Distributed Centre is managed by PORBIOTA, the Portuguese e-Infrastructure for Information and Research on Biodiversity. Led by BIOPOLIS/CIBIO-InBIO – Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, PORBIOTA connects the principal Portuguese research institutions working in biodiversity.

To know more about how Portugal contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Visit Portugal webpage
Netherlands

The Dutch National Distributed Centre is hosted by the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam. Moreover, The Netherlands hosts one of the LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities, the Virtual Laboratory and Innovation Centre.

To know more about how The Netherlands contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Visit Netherlands webpage
Italy

The Italian National Distributed Centre is led and managed by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and is coordinated by a Joint Research Unit, currently comprising 35 members. Moreover, Italy hosts one of the LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities, the Service Centre.

To know more about how Italy contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Visit Italy webpage
Greece

The Greek National Distributed Centre is funded by the Greek General Secretariat of Research and Technology and is coordinated by the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, in conjunction with 47 associated partner institutions.

To know more about how Greece contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Visit Greece webpage
Belgium

The Belgian National Distributed Centre makes varied and complementary in-kind contributions to LifeWatch ERIC. These are implemented in the form of long-lasting projects by various research centres and universities distributed throughout the country and supported by each respective political authority.

To know more about how Belgium contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Visit Belgium webpage