Danish and German biologists have been on joint field investigations on both Lolland and Fehmarn. (photo: Gisela Bertram)

When registering flora and fauna, landscapes and other EIA factors prior to a historic construction project like the fixed link across the Fehmarnbelt, it is important to be thorough, exact and far-sighted.

This is why both Danish and German biologists have spent months in the field, primarily on their own side of the belt, but occasionally together. Danish firm COWI and German firm TGP, who are responsible for the EIAs on Lolland and Fehmarn respectively, have constantly been exchanging both experiences and staff.

"We have different traditions regarding the way we carry out EIAs in Denmark and Germany, and our methods and practices also differ. But to a great extent, those of us working on the project think in the same way, so we have been working together," explains Anne Eiby, project manager at COWI on the Danish part of the EIA.

Seeing it with their own eyes
The partnership has resulted in the two companies holding joint seminars. In addition, Danish and German biologists have visited one another and carried out fieldwork together on both the German and Danish sides of the water.

"The biologists needs to see with their own eyes that there are differences between Lolland and Fehmarn. We want to know for certain that when the two locations are described differently in the EISs, it isn’t simply due to different working methods and practices, but to actual differences in nature," Eiby says.

Anne Eiby explains that there are differences in the way that the biologists’ findings and observations are documented in Denmark and Germany. One of the areas in which practices differ is the valuation method for the various nature types. In Denmark, they have adapted the German approach.

Christoph Gondesen is project manager at TGP and responsible for the German EIA. In Germany, he explains, they try to obtain a more data-based impression of the study area:

"In Germany, we decide how to compensate for the loss of nature based on the quality of the area that has been lost. For this reason, we are extremely careful to value the existing ecological conditions very precisely," he says.