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Coastal and shallow shelf seas are high-energy environments and feature intense interactions of physical, biological and biogeochemical processes. In a large bandwidth of spatial and temporal scales, marine processes interact with meteorological, terrestrial and open sea drivers and form highly dynamic conditions for marine ecosystems (e.g. Kösters and Winter 2014). Detailed information on the state of marine environmental systems is required to satisfy societal and science-driven interest in fundamental system understanding, the need for knowledge on contemporary system stability, and the prediction of future developments of the coastal realm. Besides an intrinsic motivation of science and society, also political requirements call for an investigation of environmental conditions and process interactions in the marine environment. The European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) demands regular reporting on the environmental state and the achievement of a Good Environmental Status (GES) of the EU’s marine waters by 2020. In 2010 the European Commission issued criteria and methodological standards for reports on the environmental state. Eleven descriptors were constituted and associated criteria and indicators were defined to interpret the GES (EU 2010), leading to a number of research initiatives in this context. Following the need for enhanced scientific knowledge on the marine environment in order to discuss and further develop criteria and indicators of environmental states, and to provide an evaluation of suitable observation techniques, the German research project WIMO (Scientific monitoring concepts for the German Bight) was carried out from 2010 to 2015 (Winter et al. 2014, 2016). The collaborative project involving twelve German research institutions and authorities investigated the applicability of MSFD descriptors, developed observation techniques and contributed to an enhanced understanding of habitats and ecosystems. The focus was set on issues of biodiversity (descriptor 1), eutrophication (descriptor 5) and seafloor integrity (descriptor 6) in the highly dynamic environment of the German Wadden Sea, southern North Sea. The state and development of marine systems can only be assessed based on observation data and well-suited approaches for spatiotemporal interand extrapolation of those data. Observations include all direct and local investigations from short-term scientific field campaigns, as typically carried out within the framework of research projects, to long-term monitoring, which typically is realized by responsible authorities and agencies. Methods for spatiotemporal interand extrapolation of observations and scenario analyses encompass modelling approaches of different complexity: from conceptual system descriptors to empirical formulations to complex numerical modelling systems. Data analysis and numerical modelling ideally are combined in an iterative and adaptive approach: besides the use of models for the interand extrapolation of data and scenario experiments, also field campaigns and monitoring locations can be optimized by dedicated model experiments. Models in turn are evaluated and enhanced based on relevant field data. This special issue on outcomes of the WIMO project comprises ten articles that mainly focus on different aspects of the MSFD descriptors 5 (eutrophication) and 6 (seafloor integrity). Hydrodynamics, sedimentological and biogeochemical characteristics of the seafloor determine the state of benthic * Christian Winter cwinter@marum.de

Monitoring concepts for an evaluation of marine environmental states in the German Bight