In order to enable the conceivement and enforcement of efficient measures for environmental precaution and protection, it is necessary to undertake an environmental systems analysis. Against the background of this assumption, a concept for a federal ecosystem research program has been initiated by the Federal Ministry of the Interior in 1978. Cooperating on this project was the Federal Ministry of Research and Agriculture. On this basis, ecosystem research projects have been implemented by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Federal Environmental Ministry, in Berchtesgaden, Munich, Bayreuth, Göttingen and Kiel. The latest joint project of the Federal Environmental Ministry - the Ecosystem Research Project on the Wadden Sea - has been promoted in cooperation with the tates of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony and with the Federal Ministry for Education and Research. The project has been completed in 1999.