Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
,
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark
...
,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
and
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an
continental shelf
A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island ...
, it connects to the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
through the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
in the south and the
Norwegian Sea
The Norwegian Sea ( no, Norskehavet; is, Noregshaf; fo, Norskahavið) is a marginal sea, grouped with either the Atlantic Ocean or the Arctic Ocean, northwest of Norway between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea, adjoining the Barents Sea to ...
in the north. It is more than long and wide, covering .
It hosts key north European shipping lanes and is a major
fishery
Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life; or more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a. fishing ground). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farms, both ...
. The coast is a popular destination for recreation and tourism in bordering countries, and a rich source of energy resources, including
wind
Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few hou ...
and wave power.
The North Sea has featured prominently in geopolitical and military affairs, particularly in
Northern Europe
The northern region of Europe has several definitions. A restrictive definition may describe Northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54th parallel north, 54°N, or may be based on other g ...
, from the Middle Ages to the modern era. It was also important globally through the power northern Europeans projected worldwide during much of the Middle Ages and into the modern era. The North Sea was the centre of the Vikings' rise. The
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League (; gml, Hanse, , ; german: label=Modern German, Deutsche Hanse) was a medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe. Growing from a few North German to ...
, the
Dutch Republic
The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...
, and the British each sought to gain command of the North Sea and access to the world's markets and resources. As Germany's only outlet to the ocean, the North Sea was strategically important through both world wars.
The coast has diverse geology and geography. In the north, deep
fjord
In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Ice ...
Scottish
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
coastlines respectively, whereas in the south, the coast consists mainly of sandy beaches, estuaries of long rivers and wide
mudflat
Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal fl ...
s. Due to the dense population, heavy
industrialisation
Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
, and intense use of the sea and the area surrounding it, various environmental issues affect the sea's ecosystems. Adverse environmental issuescommonly including
overfishing
Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in th ...
, industrial and agricultural
runoff
Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to:
* RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program
* Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed
* Runoff or run-off, a stock market ...
,
dredging
Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing da ...
, and dumping, among others have led to several efforts to prevent degradation and to safeguard long-term economic benefits.
Geography
The North Sea is bounded by the
Orkney Islands
Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...
and east coast of
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
to the west and the northern and
central Europe
Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the area' ...
an mainland to the east and south, including
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
,
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark
...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, and
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. In the southwest, beyond the
Straits of Dover
The Strait of Dover or Dover Strait (french: Pas de Calais - ''Strait of Calais''), is the strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel, marking the boundary between the Channel and the North Sea, separating Great Britain from continent ...
, the North Sea becomes the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
respectively. In the north it is bordered by the
Shetland Islands
Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom.
The islands lie about to the no ...
, and connects with the
Norwegian Sea
The Norwegian Sea ( no, Norskehavet; is, Noregshaf; fo, Norskahavið) is a marginal sea, grouped with either the Atlantic Ocean or the Arctic Ocean, northwest of Norway between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea, adjoining the Barents Sea to ...
, which is a marginal sea in the
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
.
The North Sea is more than long and wide, with an area of and a volume of . Around the edges of the North Sea are sizeable islands and
archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands.
Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...
s, including
Shetland
Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom.
The islands lie about to the no ...
,
Orkney
Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...
, and the Frisian Islands. The North Sea receives freshwater from a number of European continental watersheds, as well as the
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...
. A large part of the European
drainage basin
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, t ...
empties into the North Sea, including water from the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
. The largest and most important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the
Elbe
The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Repu ...
Meuse
The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a t ...
. Around 185 million people live in the
catchment area
In human geography, a catchment area is the area from which a location, such as a city, service or institution, attracts a population that uses its services and economic opportunities. Catchment areas may be defined based on from where people are ...
continental shelf
A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island ...
with a mean depth of . The only exception is the Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
to an area north of
Bergen
Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula of ...
. It is between wide and has a maximum depth of .
The
Dogger Bank
Dogger Bank (Dutch: ''Doggersbank'', German: ''Doggerbank'', Danish: ''Doggerbanke'') is a large sandbank in a shallow area of the North Sea about off the east coast of England.
During the last ice age the bank was part of a large landmass c ...
, a vast
moraine
A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice shee ...
, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris, rises to a mere below the surface. This feature has produced the finest fishing location of the North Sea. The
Long Forties
200px, right
Long Forties is a zone of the northern North Sea that is fairly consistently deep.
Extent
Long Forties are between the northeast coasts of Scotland and the southwest coast of Norway, centred about 57°N 0°30′E; compare to th ...
and the
Broad Fourteens
200px, The Broad Fourteens on a map by Delisle (1743)
The Broad Fourteens is an area of the southern North Sea that is fairly consistently deep. Thus, on a nautical chart with depths given in fathoms, a broad area with many "14" notations can be ...
are large areas with roughly uniform depth in
fathom
A fathom is a unit of length in the imperial and the U.S. customary systems equal to , used especially for measuring the depth of water. The fathom is neither an International Standard (SI) unit, nor an internationally-accepted non-SI unit. Hi ...
s (forty fathoms and fourteen fathoms or deep, respectively). These great banks and others make the North Sea particularly hazardous to navigate, which has been alleviated by the implementation of
satellite navigation systems
A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning. It allows satellite navigation devices to determine their location (longitude, latitude, and altitude/elevation) to high pr ...
. The
Devil's Hole
Devils Hole is a geologic formation located in a detached unit of Death Valley National Park and surrounded by the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, in Nye County, Nevada, in the Southwestern United States.
Devils Hole is habitat for the onl ...
lies east of
Dundee
Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...
, Scotland. The feature is a series of asymmetrical trenches between long, wide and up to deep.
Other areas which are less deep are
Cleaver Bank
The Cleaver Bank (Dutch: ''Klaverbank)'' is a sandbank in the North Sea about off the west coast of the Netherlands and south of the Dogger Bank. The size of the bank is about 1235 km2. The bank is 30-40 metres below sea level.
The Cleaver Bank ...
,
Fisher Bank
The Fisher Bank is a sand bank in the North Sea, off the west coast of Denmark. It consists of ''Great Fisher Bank'', and ''Little Fisher Bank'' (the latter closer to Danish coast). Some older charts refer to them as the "Great Fishing Bank" and ...
and
Noordhinder Bank
Noordhinder Bank is a shoal in the southern part of the North Sea, between Antwerp, Belgium, and the mouth of the Thames in south-east England.
There is, or was, a lightship there. It is located about from Flushing and from Ostend.
During ...
.
Extent
The
International Hydrographic Organization
The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) is an intergovernmental organisation representing hydrography. , the IHO comprised 98 Member States.
A principal aim of the IHO is to ensure that the world's seas, oceans and navigable waters a ...
defines the limits of the North Sea as follows:
''On the Southwest.'' A line joining the ''Phare de Walde'' (Walde Lighthouse, in France, 50°59'37"N, 1°54'53"E) and Leathercoat Point (England, 51°10'01.4"N 1°24'07.8"). northeast of Dover.
''On the Northwest.'' From Dunnet Head (58°40'20"N, 3°22'30"W) in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
to Tor Ness (58°47'N) in the Island of
Hoy
Hoy ( sco, Hoy; from Norse , meaning "high island") is an island in Orkney, Scotland, measuring – the second largest in the archipelago, after Mainland. A natural causeway, ''the Ayre'', links the island to the smaller South Walls; the two ...
, thence through this island to the Kame of Hoy (58°55'N) on to Breck Ness on Mainland (58°58'N) through this island to
Costa Head
Costa Head is a prominent headland on Eynhallow Sound on the northwestern coast of the Orkney Mainland, Scotland. The tidal indraught of Eynhallow Sound is "scarcely felt beyond a line joining Costa Head and the Reef of Quendale". To the east ...
(3°14'W) and Inga Ness (59'17'N) in Westray through Westray, to Bow Head, across to Mull Head (North point of
Papa Westray
Papa Westray () ( sco, Papa Westree), also known as Papay, is one of the Orkney Islands in Scotland, United Kingdom. The fertile soilKeay, J. & Keay, J. (1994) ''Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland''. London. HarperCollins. has long been a draw ...
) and on to Seal Skerry (North point of
North Ronaldsay
North Ronaldsay (, also , sco, North Ronalshee) is the northernmost island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. With an area of , it is the fourteenth-largest.Haswell-Smith (2004) p. 334 It is mentioned in the '' Orkneyinga saga''; in modern ...
Shetland
Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom.
The islands lie about to the no ...
Islands).
''On the North.'' From the North point (Fethaland Point) of the Mainland of the Shetland Islands, across to Graveland Ness (60°39'N) in the Island of
Yell
A yell is a loud vocalization; see screaming.
Yell may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Yell, Shetland, one of the North Isles of the Shetland archipelago, Scotland
* Yell Sound, Shetland, Scotland
United States
* Yell, Tennessee, an unin ...
, through Yell to Gloup Ness (1°04'W) and across to Spoo Ness (60°45'N) in Unst island, through Unst to Herma Ness (60°51'N), on to the SW point of the Rumblings and to Muckle Flugga () all these being included in the North Sea area; thence up the meridian of 0°53' West to the parallel of 61°00' North and eastward along this parallel to the coast of Norway, the whole of Viking Bank is thus included in the North Sea.
''On the East.'' The Western limit of the Skagerrak line joining Hanstholm () and the Naze (Lindesnes">Hanstholm.html" ;"title=" line joining Hanstholm"> line joining Hanstholm () and the Naze (Lindesnes, )].
Hydrology
Temperature and salinity
The average temperature is in the summer and in the winter. The average temperatures have been trending higher since 1988, which has been attributed to
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
. Air temperatures in January range on average between and in July between . The winter months see frequent gales and storms.
The
salinity
Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensionless and equal ...
averages between of water. The salinity has the highest variability where there is
fresh water
Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...
inflow, such as at the Rhine and Elbe estuaries, the Baltic Sea exit and along the coast of Norway.
Water circulation and tides
The main pattern to the flow of water in the North Sea is an anti-clockwise rotation along the edges.
The North Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean receiving the majority of
ocean current
An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of sea water generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences. Depth contours, s ...
from the northwest opening, and a lesser portion of warm current from the smaller opening at the English Channel. These tidal currents leave along the Norwegian coast. Surface and deep water currents may move in different directions. Low salinity surface coastal waters move offshore, and deeper, denser high salinity waters move inshore.
The North Sea located on the continental shelf has different waves from those in deep ocean water. The wave speeds are diminished and the wave amplitudes are increased. In the North Sea there are two
amphidromic
An amphidromic point, also called a tidal node, is a geographical location which has zero tidal amplitude for one harmonic constituent of the tide. The tidal range (the peak-to-peak amplitude, or the height difference between high tide and low ...
systems and a third incomplete amphidromic system. p. 329 tidal map showing amphidromes p. 157 tidal map showing amphidromes In the North Sea the average tide difference in wave amplitude is between zero and .
The Kelvin tide of the Atlantic Ocean is a semidiurnal wave that travels northward. Some of the energy from this wave travels through the English Channel into the North Sea. The wave continues to travel northward in the Atlantic Ocean, and once past the northern tip of Great Britain, the Kelvin wave turns east and south and once again enters the North Sea. p. 94 shows the amphidromic points of the North Sea
Coasts
The eastern and western coasts of the North Sea are jagged, formed by
glacier
A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...
s during the ice ages. The coastlines along the southernmost part are covered with the remains of deposited glacial sediment. The Norwegian mountains plunge into the sea creating deep
fjord
In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Ice ...
s and
archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands.
Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...
s. South of Stavanger, the coast softens, the islands become fewer. The eastern Scottish coast is similar, though less severe than Norway. From north east of England, the cliffs become lower and are composed of less resistant
moraine
A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice shee ...
, which erodes more easily, so that the coasts have more rounded contours. In the Netherlands, Belgium and in
East Anglia
East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
the
littoral
The littoral zone or nearshore is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal areas ...
is low and marshy. The east coast and south-east of the North Sea (
Wadden Sea
The Wadden Sea ( nl, Waddenzee ; german: Wattenmeer; nds, Wattensee or ; da, Vadehavet; fy, Waadsee, longname=yes; frr, di Heef) is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea. It lies between the coast of northwestern conti ...
) have coastlines that are mainly sandy and straight owing to
longshore drift
Longshore drift from longshore current is a geological process that consists of the transportation of sediments (clay, silt, pebbles, sand, shingle) along a coast parallel to the shoreline, which is dependent on the angle incoming wave direction ...
, particularly along Belgium and Denmark.
Coastal management
The southern coastal areas were originally
flood plain
A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...
s and swampy land. In areas especially vulnerable to storm surges, people settled behind elevated levees and on natural areas of high ground such as spits and
geest
Geest is a type of landform, slightly raised above the surrounding countryside, that occurs on the plains of Northern Germany, the Northern Netherlands and Denmark. It is a landscape of sandy and gravelly soils formed as a glacial outwash plai ...
land. As early as 500 BC, people were constructing artificial dwelling hills higher than the prevailing flood levels. It was only around the beginning of the
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended ...
, in 1200 AD, that inhabitants began to connect single ring dikes into a dike line along the entire coast, thereby turning amphibious regions between the land and the sea into permanent solid ground.
The modern form of the dikes supplemented by overflow and lateral diversion channels, began to appear in the 17th and 18th centuries, built in the Netherlands. The North Sea Floods of 1953 and 1962 were the impetus for further raising of the dikes as well as the shortening of the coast line so as to present as little surface area as possible to the punishment of the sea and the storms. Currently, 27% of the Netherlands is below sea level protected by dikes, dunes, and beach flats.
Coastal management
Coastal management is defence against flooding and erosion, and techniques that stop erosion to claim lands. Protection against rising sea levels in the 21st century is crucial, as sea level rise accelerates due to climate change. Changes in s ...
today consists of several levels. The dike slope reduces the energy of the incoming sea, so that the dike itself does not receive the full impact. Dikes that lie directly on the sea are especially reinforced. The dikes have, over the years, been repeatedly raised, sometimes up to and have been made flatter to better reduce wave erosion. Where the dunes are sufficient to protect the land behind them from the sea, these dunes are planted with beach grass (''
Ammophila arenaria
''Ammophila arenaria'' is a species of grass in the family Poaceae. It is known by the common names marram grass and European beachgrass. It is one of two species of the genus ''Ammophila (Poaceae), Ammophila''. It is native to the coastlines of ...
'') to protect them from erosion by wind, water, and foot traffic.
Storm tides
Storm surge
A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the n ...
s threaten, in particular, the coasts of the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Denmark and low-lying areas of eastern England particularly around
The Wash
The Wash is a rectangular bay and multiple estuary at the north-west corner of East Anglia on the East coast of England, where Norfolk, England, Norfolk meets Lincolnshire and both border the North Sea. One of Britain's broadest estuaries, it i ...
barometric pressure
Atmospheric pressure, also known as barometric pressure (after the barometer), is the pressure within the atmosphere of Earth. The standard atmosphere (symbol: atm) is a unit of pressure defined as , which is equivalent to 1013.25 millibars, 7 ...
combined with strong wind created
wave action
In fluid dynamics, a wind wave, water wave, or wind-generated water wave, is a surface wave that occurs on the free surface of bodies of water as a result from the wind blowing over the water surface. The contact distance in the direction of t ...
.
The first recorded storm tide flood was the ''Julianenflut'', on 17 February 1164. In its wake, the
Jadebusen
The Jade Bight (or ''Jade Bay''; german: Jadebusen) is a bight or bay on the North Sea coast of Germany. It was formerly known simply as ''Jade'' or ''Jahde''. Because of the very low input of freshwater, it is classified as a bay rather than an ...
, (a bay on the coast of Germany), began to form.
A storm tide in 1228 is recorded to have killed more than 100,000 people. In 1362, the Second Marcellus Flood, also known as the ''Grote Manndrenke'', hit the entire southern coast of the North Sea. Chronicles of the time again record more than 100,000 deaths, large parts of the coast were lost permanently to the sea, including the now legendary
lost city
A lost city is an urban settlement that fell into terminal decline and became extensively or completely uninhabited, with the consequence that the site's former significance was no longer known to the wider world. The locations of many lost citi ...
of
Rungholt
Rungholt was a settlement in North Frisia, in what was then the Danish Duchy of Schleswig. The area is today located in Germany. Rungholt reportedly sank beneath the waves of the North Sea when a storm tide (known as ''Grote Mandrenke'' or ''D ...
.
In the 20th century, the
North Sea flood of 1953
The 1953 North Sea flood was a major flood caused by a heavy storm surge that struck the Netherlands, north-west Belgium, England and Scotland. Most sea defences facing the surge were overwhelmed, causing extensive flooding.
The storm and flo ...
flooded several nations' coasts and cost more than 2,000 lives.
315 citizens of Hamburg died in the North Sea flood of 1962.
Tsunamis
Though rare, the North Sea has been the site of a number of historically documented
tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...
s. The
Storegga Slide
The three Storegga Slides ( no, Storeggaraset) are amongst the largest known submarine landslides. They occurred at the edge of Norway's continental shelf in the Norwegian Sea, approximately 6225–6170 BCE. The collapse involved an estimated ...
s were a series of underwater landslides, in which a piece of the Norwegian continental shelf slid into the Norwegian Sea. The immense landslips occurred between 8150 BCE and 6000 BCE, and caused a tsunami up to high that swept through the North Sea, having the greatest effect on Scotland and the Faeroe Islands.
The
Dover Straits earthquake of 1580
Though severe earthquakes in the north of France and Britain are rare, the 1580 Dover Straits earthquake appears to have been one of the largest in the recorded history of England, Flanders or northern France. Its effects started to be felt in L ...
is among the first recorded earthquakes in the North Sea measuring between 5.6 and 5.9 on the Richter scale. This event caused extensive damage in
Calais
Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. Th ...
both through its tremors and possibly triggered a
tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...
, though this has never been confirmed. The theory is a vast underwater landslide in the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
was triggered by the earthquake, which in turn caused a tsunami. The tsunami triggered by the
1755 Lisbon earthquake
The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, also known as the Great Lisbon earthquake, impacted Portugal, the Iberian Peninsula, and Northwest Africa on the morning of Saturday, 1 November, Feast of All Saints, at around 09:40 local time. In combination with ...
reached Holland, although the waves had lost their destructive power. The largest earthquake ever recorded in the United Kingdom was the
1931 Dogger Bank earthquake
The Dogger Bank earthquake of 1931 was the strongest earthquake recorded in the United Kingdom since measurements began. It had a magnitude of 6.1 on the Richter magnitude scale, and it caused a shaking intensity of VI (''Strong'') to VII (''Ver ...
, which measured 6.1 on the
Richter magnitude scale
The Richter scale —also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale—is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Francis Richter and presented in his landmark 1935 ...
and caused a small tsunami that flooded parts of the British coast.
Geology
Shallow
epicontinental
An inland sea (also known as an epeiric sea or an epicontinental sea) is a continental body of water which is very large and is either completely surrounded by dry land or connected to an ocean by a river, strait, or "arm of the sea". An inland se ...
seas like the current North Sea have since long existed on the European
continental shelf
A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island ...
. The rifting that formed the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean during the
Jurassic
The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...
and
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...
periods, from about , caused tectonic uplift in the British Isles. Since then, a shallow sea has almost continuously existed between the uplands of the
Fennoscandian Shield
The Baltic Shield (or Fennoscandian Shield) is a segment of the Earth's crust belonging to the East European Craton, representing a large part of Fennoscandia, northwestern Russia and the northern Baltic Sea. It is composed mostly of Archean an ...
and the British Isles. This precursor of the current North Sea has grown and shrunk with the rise and fall of the
eustatic
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...
sea level during geologic time. Sometimes it was connected with other shallow seas, such as the sea above the Paris Basin to the south-west, the
Paratethys Sea
The Paratethys sea, Paratethys ocean, Paratethys realm or just Paratethys was a large shallow inland sea that stretched from the region north of the Alps over Central Europe to the Aral Sea in Central Asia.
Paratethys was peculiar due to its pal ...
to the south-east, or the Tethys Ocean to the south.
During the Late Cretaceous, about , all of modern mainland Europe except for Scandinavia was a scattering of islands. By the Early
Oligocene
The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the ...
, , the emergence of Western and Central Europe had almost completely separated the North Sea from the Tethys Ocean, which gradually shrank to become the Mediterranean as Southern Europe and South West Asia became dry land. The North Sea was cut off from the English Channel by a narrow land bridge until that was breached by at least two catastrophic floods between 450,000 and 180,000 years ago. Since the start of the
Quaternary
The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...
period about , the eustatic sea level has fallen during each glacial period and then risen again. Every time the ice sheet reached its greatest extent, the North Sea became almost completely dry, the dry landmass being known as Doggerland, whose northern regions were themselves known to have been glaciated. The present-day coastline formed after the
Last Glacial Maximum
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Late Glacial Maximum, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period that ice sheets were at their greatest extent.
Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Eur ...
when the sea began to flood the European continental shelf.
In 2006 a bone fragment was found while drilling for oil in the North Sea. Analysis indicated that it was a Plateosaurus from 199 to 216 million years ago. This was the deepest dinosaur fossil ever found and the first find for Norway.
File:Doggerland.svg, Map showing hypothetical extent of Doggerland (c. 8,000 BC), which provided a land bridge between Great Britain and continental Europe
File:North Sea -.jpg, North Sea from De Koog, Texel island
File:Mediterranean Rupelian.jpg, The North Sea between and , as Central Europe became dry land
Nature
Fish and shellfish
Copepod
Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat (ecology), habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthos, benthic (living on the ocean floor) ...
s and other
zooplankton
Zooplankton are the animal component of the planktonic community ("zoo" comes from the Greek word for ''animal''). Plankton are aquatic organisms that are unable to swim effectively against currents, and consequently drift or are carried along by ...
are plentiful in the North Sea. These tiny organisms are crucial elements of the food chain supporting many species of fish. Over 230 species of
fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...
live in the North Sea.
Cod
Cod is the common name for the demersal fish genus '' Gadus'', belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gadus'' is commonly not call ...
,
haddock
The haddock (''Melanogrammus aeglefinus'') is a saltwater ray-finned fish from the family Gadidae, the true cods. It is the only species in the monotypic genus ''Melanogrammus''. It is found in the North Atlantic Ocean and associated seas where ...
mackerel
Mackerel is a common name applied to a number of different species of pelagic fish, mostly from the family Scombridae. They are found in both temperate and tropical seas, mostly living along the coast or offshore in the oceanic environment.
...
,
herring
Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae.
Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...
sandeel
Sand eel or sandeel is the common name used for a considerable number of species of fish. While they are not true eels, they are eel-like in their appearance and can grow up to in length. Many species are found off the western coasts of Europe ...
are all very common and are fished commercially. Due to the various depths of the North Sea trenches and differences in salinity, temperature, and water movement, some fish such as blue-mouth redfish and rabbitfish reside only in small areas of the North Sea.
Crustacean
Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...
lobster
Lobsters are a family (biology), family (Nephropidae, Synonym (taxonomy), synonym Homaridae) of marine crustaceans. They have long bodies with muscular tails and live in crevices or burrows on the sea floor. Three of their five pairs of legs ...
,
shrimp
Shrimp are crustaceans (a form of shellfish) with elongated bodies and a primarily swimming mode of locomotion – most commonly Caridea and Dendrobranchiata of the decapod order, although some crustaceans outside of this order are refer ...
,
oyster
Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not al ...
,
mussel
Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and Freshwater bivalve, freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other ...
s and clams all live in the North Sea. Recently non-indigenous species have become established including the Pacific oyster and
Atlantic jackknife clam
The Atlantic jackknife clam, ''Ensis leei'', also known as the bamboo clam, American jackknife clam or razor clam, is a large edible marine bivalve mollusc found on the North American Atlantic coast, from Canada to South Carolina. The species ...
.
Birds
The coasts of the North Sea are home to
nature reserve
A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...
s including the
Ythan Estuary
The Ythan Estuary (Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Eithein) is the tidal component of the Ythan River, emptying into the North Sea north of Aberdeen, Scotland. The estuary’s tidal action extends a inland and has characteristic widths of between a ...
Farne Islands
The Farne Islands are a group of islands off the coast of Northumberland, England. The group has between 15 and 20 islands depending on the level of the tide.
in the UK and the Wadden Sea National Parks in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. These locations provide breeding
habitat
In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...
for dozens of bird species. Tens of millions of birds make use of the North Sea for breeding, feeding, or migratory stopovers every year. Populations of
black-legged kittiwake
The black-legged kittiwake (''Rissa tridactyla'') is a seabird species in the gull family Laridae.
This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'' as ''Larus tridactylus''. The English ...
s,
Atlantic puffin
The Atlantic puffin ('), also known as the common puffin, is a species of seabird in the auk family. It is the only puffin native to the Atlantic Ocean; two related species, the tufted puffin and the horned puffin is found in the northeastern ...
s,
northern gannet
The northern gannet (''Morus bassanus'') is a seabird, the largest species of the gannet family, Sulidae. It is native to the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, breeding in Western Europe and Northeastern North America. It is the largest seabird in t ...
s,
northern fulmar
The northern fulmar (''Fulmarus glacialis''), fulmar, or Arctic fulmar is a highly abundant seabird found primarily in subarctic regions of the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans. There has been one confirmed sighting in the Southern Hemis ...
loon
Loons (North American English) or divers (British / Irish English) are a group of aquatic birds found in much of North America and northern Eurasia. All living species of loons are members of the genus ''Gavia'', family Gaviidae and order Gavi ...
s (divers),
cormorant
Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the IOC adopted a consensus taxonomy of seven ge ...
s,
gull
Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century, m ...
s,
auk
An auk or alcid is a bird of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. The alcid family includes the murres, guillemots, auklets, puffins, and murrelets. The word "auk" is derived from Icelandic ''álka'', from Old Norse ''alka'' (a ...
s, and terns, and many other seabirds make these coasts popular for birdwatching.
Marine mammals
The North Sea is also home to marine mammals. Common seals,
grey seal
The grey seal (''Halichoerus grypus'') is found on both shores of the North Atlantic Ocean. In Latin Halichoerus grypus means "hook-nosed sea pig". It is a large seal of the family Phocidae, which are commonly referred to as "true seals" or " ...
s, and harbour porpoises can be found along the coasts, at marine installations, and on islands. The very northern North Sea islands such as the Shetland Islands are occasionally home to a larger variety of pinnipeds including bearded,
harp
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...
,
hooded
A hood is a kind of headgear that covers most of the human head, head and neck, and sometimes the face. Hoods that cover mainly the sides and top of the head, and leave the face mostly or partly open may be worn for protection from the environm ...
cetaceans
Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel them ...
include various
porpoise
Porpoises are a group of fully aquatic marine mammals, all of which are classified under the family Phocoenidae, parvorder Odontoceti (toothed whales). Although similar in appearance to dolphins, they are more closely related to narwhals an ...
,
dolphin
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...
and
whale
Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...
species.
Flora
Plant species in the North Sea include species of wrack, among them
bladder wrack
''Fucus vesiculosus'', known by the common names bladder wrack, black tang, rockweed, sea grapes, bladder fucus, sea oak, cut weed, dyers fucus, red fucus and rock wrack, is a seaweed found on the coasts of the North Sea, the western Baltic Se ...
,
knotted wrack
''Ascophyllum nodosum'' is a large, common cold water seaweed or brown alga ( Phaeophyceae) in the family Fucaceae, being the only species in the genus ''Ascophyllum''. It is a seaweed that only grows in the northern Atlantic Ocean, also known i ...
, and serrated wrack.
Algae
Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...
, macroalgal, and kelp, such as oarweed and laminaria hyperboria, and species of
maerl
Maerl (also rhodolith) is a collective name for non-geniculate coralline red algae with a certain growth habit. Maerl grows at a rate of c. 1 mm per year. It accumulates as unattached particles and forms extensive beds in suitable sublitto ...
are found as well.Eelgrass, formerly common in the entirety of the Wadden Sea, was nearly wiped out in the 20th century by a disease. Similarly,
sea grass
Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the orde ...
used to coat huge tracts of ocean floor, but have been damaged by trawling and dredging have diminished its habitat and prevented its return. Invasive Japanese seaweed has spread along the shores of the sea clogging harbours and inlets and has become a nuisance.
Biodiversity and conservation
Due to the heavy human populations and high level of industrialization along its shores, the wildlife of the North Sea has suffered from pollution, overhunting, and overfishing. Flamingos and
pelican
Pelicans (genus ''Pelecanus'') are a genus of large water birds that make up the family Pelecanidae. They are characterized by a long beak and a large throat pouch used for catching prey and draining water from the scooped-up contents before s ...
s were once found along the southern shores of the North Sea, but became extinct over the second millennium. Walruses frequented the Orkney Islands through the mid-16th century, as both Sable Island and Orkney Islands lay within their normal range.
Grey whale
The gray whale (''Eschrichtius robustus''), also known as the grey whale,Britannica Micro.: v. IV, p. 693. gray back whale, Pacific gray whale, Korean gray whale, or California gray whale, is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and bree ...
s also resided in the North Sea but were driven to extinction in the Atlantic in the 17th century Other species have dramatically declined in population, though they are still found. North Atlantic right whales,
sturgeon
Sturgeon is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretace ...
skate
Skate or Skates may refer to: Fish
*Skate (fish), several genera of fish belonging to the family Rajidae
* Pygmy skates, several genera of fish belonging to the family Gurgesiellidae
* Smooth skates or leg skates, several genera of fish belongin ...
s,
salmon
Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...
, and other species were common in the North Sea until the 20th century, when numbers declined due to
overfishing
Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in th ...
.
Other factors like the introduction of
non-indigenous species
An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there ...
,
industrial
Industrial may refer to:
Industry
* Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry
* Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems
* Industrial city, a city dominate ...
and
agricultural pollution
Agricultural pollution refers to biotic and abiotic byproducts of farming practices that result in contamination or degradation of the environment and surrounding ecosystems, and/or cause injury to humans and their economic interests. The pol ...
,
trawling
Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net used for trawling is called a trawl. This principle requires netting bags which are towed through water to catch different speci ...
and
dredging
Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing da ...
, human-induced
eutrophication
Eutrophication is the process by which an entire body of water, or parts of it, becomes progressively enriched with minerals and nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus. It has also been defined as "nutrient-induced increase in phytopla ...
, construction on coastal breeding and feeding grounds, sand and gravel extraction, offshore construction, and heavy shipping traffic have also contributed to the decline. For example, a resident
orca
The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only Extant taxon, extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black ...
pod was lost in the 1960s, presumably due to the peak in
PCB
PCB may refer to:
Science and technology
* Polychlorinated biphenyl, an organic chlorine compound, now recognized as an environmental toxin and classified as a persistent organic pollutant
* Printed circuit board, a board used in electronics
* ...
pollution in this time period.
The OSPAR commission manages the
OSPAR
The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic or OSPAR Convention is the current legislative instrument regulating international cooperation on environmental protection in the North-East Atlantic. Work ...
convention to counteract the harmful effects of human activity on wildlife in the North Sea, preserve
endangered species
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...
, and provide environmental protection. All North Sea border states are signatories of the MARPOL 73/78 Accords, which preserve the marine environment by preventing pollution from ships. Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands also have a trilateral agreement for the protection of the
Wadden Sea
The Wadden Sea ( nl, Waddenzee ; german: Wattenmeer; nds, Wattensee or ; da, Vadehavet; fy, Waadsee, longname=yes; frr, di Heef) is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea. It lies between the coast of northwestern conti ...
, or
mudflat
Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal fl ...
s, which run along the coasts of the three countries on the southern edge of the North Sea.
Names
The North Sea has had various names throughout history. One of the earliest recorded names was ''Septentrionalis Oceanus'', or "Northern Ocean", which was cited by Pliny. He also noted that the
Cimbri
The Cimbri (Greek Κίμβροι, ''Kímbroi''; Latin ''Cimbri'') were an ancient tribe in Europe. Ancient authors described them variously as a Celtic people (or Gaulish), Germanic people, or even Cimmerian. Several ancient sources indicate that ...
called it ''Morimarusa'' - "Dead Sea". The name "North Sea" probably came into English, however, via the Dutch "Noordzee", who named it thus either in contrast with the
Zuiderzee
The Zuiderzee or Zuider Zee (; old spelling ''Zuyderzee'' or ''Zuyder Zee'') was a shallow bay of the North Sea in the northwest of the Netherlands, extending about 100 km (60 miles) inland and at most 50 km (30 miles) wide, with an o ...
("South Sea"), located south of
Frisia
Frisia is a cross-border cultural region in Northwestern Europe. Stretching along the Wadden Sea, it encompasses the north of the Netherlands and parts of northwestern Germany. The region is traditionally inhabited by the Frisians, a West Ger ...
, or because the sea is generally to the north of the Netherlands. Before the adoption of "North Sea", the names used in English were "German Sea" or "German Ocean", referred to as the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
names "Mare Germanicum" and "Oceanus Germanicus", and these persisted in use until the First World War. Other common names in use for long periods were the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
terms "Mare Frisicum", as well as the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
equivalent, "Frisian Sea". The modern names of the sea in the other local languages are: da, Vesterhavet ("West Sea") or ''Nordsøen'' , nl, Noordzee, nds-nl, Noordzee, french: Mer du Nord, fry, Noardsee, german: Nordsee, nds, Noordsee, Northern Frisian: ''Weestsiie'' ("West Sea"), sv, Nordsjön, nb, Nordsjøen , nn, Nordsjøen, sco, North Sea and gd, An Cuan a Tuath.
File:Prima Europe tabula.jpg, A 1482 recreation of a map from Ptolemy's ''
Geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
solar eclipse
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of the Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs during an eclipse season, approximately every six month ...
1715 map showing ''The German Sea''
History
Early history
The North Sea has provided waterway access for commerce and conquest. Many areas have access to the North Sea because of its long coastline and the European rivers that empty it. There is little documentary evidence concerning the North Sea before the
Roman conquest of Britain
The Roman conquest of Britain refers to the conquest of the island of Britain by occupying Roman forces. It began in earnest in AD 43 under Emperor Claudius, and was largely completed in the southern half of Britain by 87 when the Staneg ...
in 43 CE, however, archaeological evidence reveals the diffusion of cultures and technologies from across or along the North Sea to Great Britain and Scandinavia and reliance by some prehistoric cultures on fishing, whaling, and seaborne trade on the North Sea. The Romans established organised ports in Britain, which increased shipping and began sustained trade the diffusion of cultures and technologies from across or along the North Sea to Great Britain and Scandinavia and reliance by some prehistoric cultures on fishing, whaling, and seaborne trade on the North Sea. The Romans established organised ports in Britain, which increased shipping and began sustained trade and many Scandinavian tribes participated in raids and wars against the Romans and Roman coinage and manufacturing were important trade goods. When the Romans
abandoned
Abandon, abandoned, or abandonment may refer to:
Common uses
* Abandonment (emotional), a subjective emotional state in which people feel undesired, left behind, insecure, or discarded
* Abandonment (legal), a legal term regarding property
** Chi ...
Frisians
The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal regions of the Netherlands and northwestern Germany. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, ...
,
Saxons
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
, and Jutes began the next great migration across the North Sea during the
Migration Period
The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...
. They made successive invasions of the island from what is now the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany.
The
Viking Age
The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Ger ...
began in 793 with the attack on
Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne, also called Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD; it was an important ...
; for the next quarter-millennium, the Vikings ruled the North Sea. In their superior
longship
Longships were a type of specialised Scandinavian warships that have a long history in Scandinavia, with their existence being archaeologically proven and documented from at least the fourth century BC. Originally invented and used by the Nors ...
s, they raided, traded, and established colonies and outposts along the coasts of the sea. From the Middle Ages through the 15th century, the
northern Europe
The northern region of Europe has several definitions. A restrictive definition may describe Northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54th parallel north, 54°N, or may be based on other g ...
an coastal ports exported domestic goods, dyes, linen, salt, metal goods and wine. The Scandinavian and Baltic areas shipped grain, fish, naval necessities, and timber. In turn, the North Sea countries imported high-grade cloths, spices, and fruits from the Mediterranean region. Commerce during this era was mainly conducted by maritime trade due to underdeveloped roadways.
In the 13th century the
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League (; gml, Hanse, , ; german: label=Modern German, Deutsche Hanse) was a medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe. Growing from a few North German to ...
, though centred on the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
, started to control most of the trade through important members and outposts on the North Sea. The League lost its dominance in the 16th century, as neighbouring states took control of former
Hanseatic
The Hanseatic League (; gml, Hanse, , ; german: label=German language, Modern German, Deutsche Hanse) was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Norther ...
cities and outposts. Their internal conflict prevented effective cooperation and defence. As the League lost control of its maritime cities, new
trade route
A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over bodies of water. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a sing ...
s emerged that provided Europe with Asian, American, and African goods.
Age of sail
The 17th century
Dutch Golden Age
The Dutch Golden Age ( nl, Gouden Eeuw ) was a period in the history of the Netherlands, roughly spanning the era from 1588 (the birth of the Dutch Republic) to 1672 (the Rampjaar, "Disaster Year"), in which Dutch trade, science, and Dutch art, ...
saw Dutch maritime power at its zenith. Important overseas colonies, a vast merchant marine, a large fishing fleet, powerful navy, and sophisticated financial markets made the Dutch the ascendant power in the North Sea, to be challenged by an ambitious England. This rivalry led to the first three Anglo-Dutch Wars between 1652 and 1673, which ended with Dutch victories. After the
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution; gd, Rèabhlaid Ghlòrmhor; cy, Chwyldro Gogoneddus , also known as the ''Glorieuze Overtocht'' or ''Glorious Crossing'' in the Netherlands, is the sequence of events leading to the deposition of King James II and ...
in 1688, the Dutch prince
William
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
ascended to the English throne. With unified leadership, commercial, military, and political power began to shift from Amsterdam to London.
The British did not face a challenge to their dominance of the North Sea until the 20th century.
Modern era
Tensions in the North Sea were again heightened in 1904 by the Dogger Bank incident. During the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
, several ships of the Russian Baltic Fleet, which was on its way to the Far East, mistook British fishing boats for Japanese ships and fired on them, and then upon each other, near the Dogger Bank, nearly causing Britain to enter the war on the side of Japan.
During the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
North Sea Mine Barrage
The North Sea Mine Barrage, also known as the Northern Barrage, was a large minefield laid easterly from the Orkney Islands to Norway by the United States Navy (assisted by the Royal Navy) during World War I. The objective was to inhibit the m ...
were able to establish an effective blockade for most of the war, which restricted the
Central Powers
The Central Powers, also known as the Central Empires,german: Mittelmächte; hu, Központi hatalmak; tr, İttifak Devletleri / ; bg, Централни сили, translit=Tsentralni sili was one of the two main coalitions that fought in ...
Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland (german: Skagerrakschlacht, the Battle of the Skagerrak) was a naval battle fought between Britain's Royal Navy Grand Fleet, under Admiral John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, Sir John Jellicoe, and the Imperial German Navy ...
.
World War I also brought the first extensive use of
submarine warfare
Submarine warfare is one of the four divisions of underwater warfare, the others being anti-submarine warfare, mine warfare and mine countermeasures.
Submarine warfare consists primarily of diesel and nuclear submarines using torpedoes, missi ...
, and a number of submarine actions occurred in the North Sea.
The
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
also saw action in the North Sea, though it was restricted more to aircraft reconnaissance and action by fighter/bomber aircraft, submarines and smaller vessels such as minesweepers and torpedo boats.
After the war, hundreds of thousands of tons of chemical weapons were disposed of by being dumped in the North Sea.
After the war, the North Sea lost much of its military significance because it is bordered only by
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
member-states. However, it gained significant economic importance in the 1960s as the states around the North Sea began full-scale exploitation of its oil and gas resources. The North Sea continues to be an active trade route.
Economy
Political status
Countries that border the North Sea all claim the of
territorial waters
The term territorial waters is sometimes used informally to refer to any area of water over which a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potenti ...
, within which they have exclusive fishing rights. The
Common Fisheries Policy
The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is the fisheries policy of the European Union (EU). It sets quotas for which member states are allowed to catch each type of fish, as well as encouraging the fishing industry by various market interventions. I ...
of the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
(EU) exists to coordinate fishing rights and assist with disputes between EU states and the EU border state of Norway.
After the discovery of mineral resources in the North Sea during the early 1960s, the
Convention on the Continental Shelf
The Convention on the Continental Shelf was an international treaty created to codify the rules of international law relating to continental shelves. The treaty, after entering into force 10 June 1964, established the rights of a sovereign sta ...
established country rights largely divided along the median line. The median line is defined as the line "every point of which is equidistant from the nearest points of the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea of each State is measured".
The ocean floor border between Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark was only reapportioned in 1969 after protracted negotiations and a judgment of the
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...
.
Oil and gas
As early as 1859, oil was discovered in onshore areas around the North Sea and
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
as early as 1910. Onshore resources, for example the
K12-B
The K12-B is a natural gas field in the Netherlands sector of the North Sea (in the northern part of the country). It is located approximately northwest of Amsterdam. Natural gas production in the field started in 1987.
To resolve the production ...
field in the Netherlands continue to be exploited today.
Offshore test drilling began in 1966 and then, in 1969,
Phillips Petroleum Company
Phillips Petroleum Company was an American oil company incorporated in 1917 that expanded into petroleum refining, marketing and transportation, natural gas gathering and the chemicals sectors. It was Phillips Petroleum that first found oil in the ...
discovered the
Ekofisk oil field
Ekofisk is an oil field in block 2/4 of the Norwegian sector of the North Sea about southwest of Stavanger. Discovered in 1969 by Phillips Petroleum Company, it remains one of the most important oil fields in the North Sea. This was the first ...
distinguished by valuable, low-sulphur oil. Commercial exploitation began in 1971 with
tankers
Tanker may refer to:
Transportation
* Tanker, a tank crewman (US)
* Tanker (ship), a ship designed to carry bulk liquids
** Chemical tanker, a type of tanker designed to transport chemicals in bulk
** Oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanke ...
and, after 1975, by a
pipeline
Pipeline may refer to:
Electronics, computers and computing
* Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on
** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...
, first to Teesside, England and then, after 1977, also to
Emden
Emden () is an independent city and seaport in Lower Saxony in the northwest of Germany, on the river Ems. It is the main city of the region of East Frisia and, in 2011, had a total population of 51,528.
History
The exact founding date of E ...
, Germany.
The exploitation of the North Sea oil reserves began just before the
1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis or first oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that had supp ...
, and the climb of international oil prices made the large investments needed for extraction much more attractive.
The start in 1973 of the oil reserves by the UK allowed them to stop the declining position in international trade in 1974, and a huge increase after the discovery and exploitation of the huge oil field by Phillips group in 1977 as the Brae field.
Although the production costs are relatively high, the quality of the oil, the political stability of the region, and the proximity of important markets in
western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
have made the North Sea an important oil-producing region. The largest single humanitarian catastrophe in the North Sea
oil industry
The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The larges ...
was the destruction of the offshore
oil platform
An oil platform (or oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, and similar terms) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platfor ...
Piper Alpha in 1988 in which 167 people lost their lives.
Besides the Ekofisk oil field, the
Statfjord oil field
The Statfjord oil field is a large oil and gas field covering 580 km2 in the U.K.-Norwegian boundary of the North Sea at a water depth of 145 m, discovered in 1974 by Mobil and since 1987 operated by Equinor.
It is a trans-median field cro ...
is also notable as it was the cause of the first pipeline to span the Norwegian trench. The largest natural gas field in the North Sea,
Troll gas field
Troll is a natural gas and oil field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, one of the biggest in the North Sea, holding 40% of Norway’s gas – it also possesses significant quantities of oil, in thin zones under the gas cap, to the west of ...
, lies in the Norwegian trench, dropping over , requiring the construction of the enormous Troll A platform to access it.
The price of Brent Crude, one of the first types of oil extracted from the North Sea is used today as a standard price for comparison for
crude oil
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude ...
from the rest of the world. The North Sea contains western Europe's largest oil and natural gas reserves and is one of the world's key non-OPEC producing regions.
In the UK sector of the North Sea, the oil industry invested £14.4 billion in 2013 and was on track to spend £13 billion in 2014. Industry body
Oil & Gas UK
Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), formerly known as Oil and Gas UK (OGUK), is a trade association for the United Kingdom offshore energies industry. The current Chief Executive is David Whitehouse.
History
OEUK is a not-for-profit organisation, es ...
put the decline down to rising costs, lower production, high tax rates, and less exploration.
In January 2018, The North Sea region contained 184 offshore rigs, which made it the region with the highest number of offshore rigs in the world at the time.
Fishing
The North Sea is Europe's main fishery accounting for over 5% of international commercial fish caught. Fishing in the North Sea is concentrated in the southern part of the coastal waters. The main method of fishing is
trawling
Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net used for trawling is called a trawl. This principle requires netting bags which are towed through water to catch different speci ...
.
In 1995, the total volume of fish and shellfish caught in the North Sea was approximately 3.5 million tonnes. Besides saleable fish, it is estimated that one million tonnes of unmarketable by-catch is caught and discarded to die each year.
In recent decades,
overfishing
Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in th ...
has left many fisheries unproductive, disturbing marine food chain dynamics and costing jobs in the
fishing industry
The fishing industry includes any industry or activity concerned with taking, culturing, processing, preserving, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish or fish products. It is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization as including ...
. Herring, cod and plaice fisheries may soon face the same plight as mackerel fishing, which ceased in the 1970s due to overfishing.
The objective of the European Union
Common Fisheries Policy
The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is the fisheries policy of the European Union (EU). It sets quotas for which member states are allowed to catch each type of fish, as well as encouraging the fishing industry by various market interventions. I ...
is to minimize the environmental impact associated with resource use by reducing fish discards, increasing the productivity of fisheries, stabilising markets of fisheries and fish processing, and supplying fish at reasonable prices for the consumer.
Whaling
Whaling was an important economic activity from the 9th until the 13th century for Flemish whalers. The medieval Flemish, Basque and Norwegian whalers who were replaced in the 16th century by Dutch, English, Danes, and Germans, took massive numbers of whales and dolphins and nearly depleted the right whales. This activity likely led to the extinction of the Atlantic population of the once common
grey whale
The gray whale (''Eschrichtius robustus''), also known as the grey whale,Britannica Micro.: v. IV, p. 693. gray back whale, Pacific gray whale, Korean gray whale, or California gray whale, is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and bree ...
. By 1902 the whaling had ended. After being absent for 300 years a single grey whale returned in 2010, it probably was the first of many more to find its way through the now ice-free
Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arct ...
.
Mineral resources
In addition to oil, gas, and fish, the states along the North Sea also take millions of cubic metres per year of
sand
Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of s ...
and
gravel
Gravel is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally throughout the world as a result of sedimentary and erosive geologic processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone.
Gravel is classifi ...
land reclamation
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new land from oceans, seas, riverbeds or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamati ...
and construction.
Rolled pieces of
amber
Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In Ma ...
may be picked up on the east coast of England.
Renewable energy
Due to the strong prevailing winds, and shallow water, countries on the North Sea, particularly Germany and Denmark, have used the shore for
wind power
Wind power or wind energy is mostly the use of wind turbines to electricity generation, generate electricity. Wind power is a popular, sustainable energy, sustainable, renewable energy source that has a much smaller Environmental impact of wi ...
since the 1990s. The North Sea is the home of one of the first large-scale
offshore wind farm
Offshore wind power or offshore wind energy is the generation of electricity through wind farms in bodies of water, usually at sea. There are higher wind speeds offshore than on land, so offshore farms generate more electricity per amount of c ...
s in the world, Horns Rev 1, completed in 2002. Since then many other
wind farm
A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used Wind power, to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundre ...
s have been commissioned in the North Sea (and elsewhere). As of 2013, the 630
megawatt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units, International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), ...
(MW)
London Array
The London Array is a 175-turbine 630 MW Round 2 offshore wind farm located off the Kent coast in the outer Thames Estuary in the United Kingdom. It was the largest offshore wind farm in the world until Walney Extension reached full prod ...
is the largest offshore wind farm in the world, with the 504 (MW) Greater Gabbard wind farm the second largest, followed by the 367 MW
Walney Wind Farm
Walney Wind Farms are a group of offshore wind farms west of Walney Island off the coast of Cumbria, in the Irish Sea, England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and ...
. All are off the coast of the UK. These projects will be dwarfed by subsequent wind farms that are in the pipeline, including
Dogger Bank
Dogger Bank (Dutch: ''Doggersbank'', German: ''Doggerbank'', Danish: ''Doggerbanke'') is a large sandbank in a shallow area of the North Sea about off the east coast of England.
During the last ice age the bank was part of a large landmass c ...
at 4,800 MW, Norfolk Bank (7,200 MW), and Irish Sea (4,200 MW). At the end of June 2013 total European combined offshore wind energy capacity was 6,040 MW. The UK installed 513.5 MW of offshore wind power in the first half-year of 2013.The European offshore wind industry -key trends and statistics 1st half 2013 EWEA 2013 The development of the offshore wind industry in UK-controlled areas of the North Sea is traced to three phases: coastal, off-coastal and deep offshore in the period 2004 - 2021.
The expansion of offshore wind farms has met with some resistance. Concerns have included shipping collisions and
environmental effects
Environmental issues are effects of human activity on the biophysical environment, most often of which are harmful effects that cause environmental degradation. Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment on t ...
on ocean ecology and wildlife such as fish and migratory birds, however, these concerns were found to be negligible in a long-term study in Denmark released in 2006 and again in a UK government study in 2009.
There are also concerns about reliability, and the rising costs of constructing and maintaining offshore wind farms. Despite these, development of North Sea wind power is continuing, with plans for additional wind farms off the coasts of Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. There have also been proposals for a transnational power grid in the North Sea to connect new offshore wind farms.
Energy production from
tidal power
Tidal power or tidal energy is harnessed by converting energy from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity using various methods.
Although not yet widely used, tidal energy has the potential for future electricity generation. Ti ...
is still in a pre-commercial stage. The
European Marine Energy Centre
The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) Ltd is a UKAS accredited test and research center focusing on wave and tidal power development based in the Orkney Islands, UK. The centre provides developers with the opportunity to test full-scale grid ...
has installed a wave testing system at Billia Croo on the Orkney mainland and a tidal power testing station on the nearby island of
Eday
Eday (, sco, Aidee) is one of the islands of Orkney, which are located to the north of the Scottish mainland. One of the North Isles, Eday is about from the Orkney Mainland. With an area of , it is the ninth-largest island of the archipelago. ...
. Since 2003, a prototype Wave Dragon energy converter has been in operation at Nissum Bredning fjord of northern Denmark.
Tourism
The beaches and coastal waters of the North Sea are destinations for tourists. The English, Belgian, Dutch, German and Danish coasts are developed for tourism. The North Sea coast of the United Kingdom has tourist destinations with beach resorts and links golf courses; the coastal town of
St. Andrews
St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fourt ...
in Scotland as the birthplace of
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...
is renowned as the "Home of Golf", and is a popular location among golfing pilgrims.
The
North Sea Trail
The North Sea Trail is a transnational long-distance hiking trail along the coast of the North Sea. The route passes through seven countries and 26 partner areas. The aim of the project is to promote sustainable tourism and to keep alive the com ...
is a
long-distance trail
A long-distance trail (or long-distance footpath, track, way, greenway) is a longer recreational trail mainly through rural areas used for hiking, backpacking, cycling, horse riding or cross-country skiing. They exist on all continents excep ...
linking seven countries around the North Sea. Windsurfing and sailing are popular sports because of the strong winds.
Mudflat hiking
Mudflat hiking ( da, Vadehavsvandring, nl, Wadlopen, West Frisian: ''Waadrinnen'', german: Wattwandern) is a recreation enjoyed in the Netherlands, northwest Germany, Denmark, England and France. Mudflat hikers are people who, with the aid of a ...
, recreational fishing and birdwatching are among other activities.
The climatic conditions on the North Sea coast have been claimed to be healthy. As early as the 19th century, travellers visited the North Sea coast for curative and restorative vacations. The sea air, temperature, wind, water, and sunshine are counted among the beneficial conditions that are said to activate the body's defences, improve circulation, strengthen the immune system, and have healing effects on the skin and the respiratory system.
The
Wadden Sea
The Wadden Sea ( nl, Waddenzee ; german: Wattenmeer; nds, Wattensee or ; da, Vadehavet; fy, Waadsee, longname=yes; frr, di Heef) is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea. It lies between the coast of northwestern conti ...
in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands is an
UNESCO World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
.
Marine traffic
The North Sea is important for marine transport and its shipping lanes are among the busiest in the world. Major ports are located along its coasts:
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,
(was 16th) and
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
(was 27th),
Bremen
Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...
Felixstowe
Felixstowe ( ) is a port town in Suffolk, England. The estimated population in 2017 was 24,521. The Port of Felixstowe is the largest container port in the United Kingdom. Felixstowe is approximately 116km (72 miles) northeast of London.
His ...
Port of Bruges-Zeebrugge
The Port of Zeebrugge (also referred to as the Port of Bruges or Bruges Seaport) is a large container, bulk cargo, new vehicles and passenger ferry terminal port on the North Sea. The port is located in the municipality of Bruges, West Flanders ...
, Europe's leading ro-ro port.
Fishing boats, service boats for offshore industries, sport and pleasure craft, and merchant ships to and from North Sea ports and Baltic ports must share routes on the North Sea. The Dover Strait alone sees more than 400 commercial vessels a day. Because of this volume, navigation in the North Sea can be difficult in high traffic zones, so ports have established elaborate vessel traffic services to monitor and direct ships into and out of port.
The North Sea coasts are home to numerous canals and canal systems to facilitate traffic between and among rivers, artificial harbours, and the sea. The Kiel Canal, connecting the North Sea with the Baltic Sea, is the most heavily used artificial seaway in the world reporting an average of 89 ships per day not including sporting boats and other small watercraft in 2009. It saves an average of , instead of the voyage around the
Jutland
Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
with the North Sea.
See also
*
European Atlas of the Seas
The European Atlas of the Seas is an easy-to-use and interactive web-based atlas on the coasts and seas within and around Europe and provides information on Europe's marine environment. It is freely accessible on the internet. The latest version o ...