Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research

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Instruments

Many advanced technologies such as sensors and acoustic meters are used to answer scientific questions. Applied instruments are mostly developed in-house by the marine technology department. The latest techniques enable communication with Argos satellites. However, some 'old-fashioned' tools will always remain.

Automated weighing machine

Automated weighing machine

In-house | The automated weighing machine has the capacity to weight 9000 crucibles a day, with a precision of a tenth of a milligram.

GPS bird tracking technology

GPS bird tracking technology

Third-party | Advanced technologies in bird tracking with loggers and transmitters enable us to study behaviour of birds on large scales in time and place.

Breakforce machine

Breakforce machine

Third party | This machine is used to measure the force that is needed to break the shells of bivalves and gastropods.

Sensor technology

Sensor technology

In-house | Innovative sensor technology -logging instruments- for studying ecology, physics & landscape formation.

Bird colour-rings

Bird colour-rings

Third-party | Bird ringing is very important for the study of migratory birds and their conservation. It allows to track the movements and traits of shorebirds.

Flumes and wave mesocosms

Flumes and wave mesocosms

In house | Flume systems to answer new research questions on the functioning and stability of intertidal and sub-tidal ecosystems.

GPS-GSM trackers

GPS-GSM trackers

Third-party | These trackers collect detailed information on the whereabouts and behavior of juvenile spoonbills (GPS position registered every 10 minutes).

Underwater basin

Underwater basin

In house | 12 underwater basins to study the development of ecosystems colonising the different experimental concrete and stone structures.

WATLAS bird tracking

WATLAS bird tracking

In house | Receiving mast for picking up signals of birds flying around (TOA principle). Signals are transmitted directly to storage servers.

Box Core

In house | The Box Core is a sampling device used for intertidal benthic surveys of the Wadden Sea to collect large amounts of sediment and benthos.

Long Core

Third party | During low tide benthos samples are taken with a corer down to 35 cm deep into the sediment and sieved in the field.

Hyperspectral meter

Hyperspectral meter

Third-party | By measuring the colour of the seawater the quantity of floating particles and plankton can be determined.

Sediment sieve

Third party | Sieving is a simple technique for collecting samples. Within the SIBES project about 4500 benthos and sediment samples have been collected annualy.

Rubber boats

Third party | Within the SIBES project parts of the Wadden Sea (6000) are sampled by using 3 or 4 rubber boats. A part of the sampling has to carry out on foot.

Acoustic profile meter

Third-party | The acoustic profile meter is used to measure the direction of the water at different dept by means of sound signals.

Valve Gape monitor

Valve Gape monitor

In-house | The valve gape monitor can run and store data for months on only a few alkaline batterie. It measures the electric field between to micro coils.