The German Hydrographic Institute in the years 1970 and 1971
135
F. Summary
THE GERMAN HYDROGRAPHIC INSTITUTE IN THE YEARS 1970 AND 1971
In the two years under review there was a growing public interest in marine
research, exploration and exploitation; as a consequence, the German Hydrographic
Institute (GHI) increasingly cooperated in national and international bodies.
Several GHI staff members contributed to the setting up of the Environmental
Programme of the Federal Government; the President of the GHI
took the chair in the project group “High Seas and Coastal Waters“.
The GHI was also represented in the sessions of the committees of the Inter
national Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) in Lowestoft, Copenhagen,
and Helsinki where cooperative investigations of the sea water pollution of the
North Sea and the Baltic were planned. At approx. 80 nm west-northwest of Sylt
the GHI maintains a permanent station with current meters at three different
depths, as a contribution to the ICES current measuring programme which is to
provide information on the transport of noxious elements.
Besides, GHI experts cooperated in the technical preparation of an international
Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea, in September 1971 in Den
Haag with the participation of the coastal states bordering the southern North Sea,
and in October 1971 in Oslo where the members of the Northeast Atlantic Fisheries
Convention were represented. An agreement was brought about with regard to a
list of noxious elements which should not be discharged into the sea.
From 20 to 24 September 1971, a seminar was held in the chemical-radiological
laboratory of the GHI in Hamburg-Siilldorf on “Cycling of artificial radionuclides
through marine food chains“ which had been arranged by the European Nuclear
Energy Agency (ENEA) in cooperation with the Federal Ministry for Education and
Science (BMBW) and the GHI.
The GHI contributed to the setting up of the Overall Programme for
Marine Research and Marine Engineering of the Federal
Republic of Germany 1971—75. The President of the GHI chaired the
Committee for Problems of Marine Pollution of the German Commission for
Oceanography (DKfO); furthermore, he continued to be on the Programme Com
mittee and on the Committee for International Affairs of the DKfO.
A review on German and foreign efforts in the fields of ocean engineering and
marine exploitation was given by the Congress and the Exhibition INTEROCEAN
70 in November 1970 in Düsseldorf. The President of the GHI was chairman of the
Congress Advisory Council and belonged to the Board of Directors. In order to
organize the cooperation within the European industry in the field of ocean
engineering the “Association Européenne Océanique“ was founded in Monaco
with the President of the GHI taking an active part in the foundation.
The GHI participated in the negotiations on a meteorological-oceano
graphic measuring network in the North Sea which the Federal
Ministry for Education and Science (BMBW) conducted with the Natural Environ-
