Rijkswaterstaat, Netherlands
Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) is responsible for the design, construction, management and maintenance of the main infrastructure facilities in the Netherlands. This includes the main road network, the main waterway network and national water systems. RWS conducts various knowledge and implementation tasks in the field of water management. RWS is the competent authority for the Dutch part of the North Sea and RWS is also responsible for the coordination and exploitation of the MSFD national monitoring.RWS is responsible for MSFD national monitoring, which includes underwater sound. The MSFD supports international co-operation for reaching and maintaining Good Environmental Status (GES) in marine waters. Within OSPAR (treaty for protection of the North-East Atlantic) RWS has taken the lead in co-ordinating ambient sound monitoring and management. As competent authority RWS will use the GES policy and management tool resulting from this project to manage underwater noise in order to reach GES.
RWS has wide experience in coordination of EU funded projects: e.g. as Lead partner of the projects FAIR, Building with Nature (Interreg NSR) and BE-GOOD (Interreg NWE). Furthermore RWS participates in projects like NorthSEE (Interreg NSR) and EMODNET (EU DG Mare). RWS also lead the EU funded initiative Towards a Joint monitoring programme for the North Sea and the Celtic Sea (JMP NS/CS) to explore the opportunities for joint monitoring in the North Sea.
RWS as the Lead partner (beneficiary) of JOMOPANS will co-ordinate the activities of all work packages. RWS plays a major role in the communication work package and is responsible for the general communication activities. RWS is responsible for the Netherlands contribution to measurements and data management (WP5).
