Wadden Sea

The Wadden Sea forms a broad, shallow coastal landscape on the southeastern North Sea. Tides expose extensive sand and mud flats and flow through channels among islands, shoals and coastal marshes. UNESCO describes the World Heritage property as including protected areas in the Netherlands and Germany and most of Denmark’s Wadden Sea maritime conservation area. The landscape also contains seagrass meadows, mussel beds, estuaries, beaches and dunes, created by interactions among physical and biological processes.

The tidal zone provides feeding and resting habitat for wildlife and links coastal, marine and freshwater environments. The Wadden Sea is a major staging, moulting and wintering area for migratory birds using the East Atlantic Flyway. A 2022 Wadden Sea Quality Status Report describes monitoring of 34 waterbird species and notes that, for nine monitored species, more than half of the flyway population uses the region during at least one part of its annual cycle.

The UNESCO World Heritage property is managed across national boundaries by Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, with coordination through the Trilateral Wadden Sea Cooperation. UNESCO identifies ongoing management needs involving fisheries, shipping, tourism and other human uses, as well as the protection of ecological and hydrological processes. The trilateral monitoring programme coordinates bird counts among institutions and volunteer and professional counters in the three countries; its current scheme was established in 1987–1988.