Center for Coastal & Marine Studies
EEA briefing: How climate change impacts marine life
This briefing summarises some of the ways in which climate change is impacting Europe’s marine ecosystems. It identifies how various ecosystem features are influenced by climate change and spotlights potential areas of concern. It also highlights areas where marine life may be more impacted by climate change compared with other areas. This work supports the recent integration of climate change as a key consideration in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). It does this by presenting a spatial description of the vulnerabilities of marine areas to climate change.
Key messages
• Europe’s marine areas and marine life are unequally vulnerable to climate change. Recent research indicates that climate change may account for up to half of the combined impacts on marine ecosystems.
• Semi-enclosed seas (Baltic and Adriatic for example), and shallow coastal areas are more vulnerable to climate change compared to deeper, offshore areas.
• Most species are in a degraded state across Europe’s seas. Bony fish are potentially the only positive exception.
• Bottom-living communities and fish are more vulnerable than highly mobile mammals and birds, for example. This potentially impacts the whole marine food web and dependent fisheries.
• Globally, oceans are changing. Ocean warming (0.88°C higher in 2011-2020 compared to 1850-1900), oxygen loss (down 3-4% by 2100) and ocean acidification (decreased pH by 30% in 2023 compared to 1700) may be occurring at a speed that may be too fast for species to adapt to the changes.
Read the full briefing here!
Aberdeen University, School of Geosciences is calling for Competition Funded PhD Project: Developing an Innovative System for Sustainable Resilience to Coastal Erosion: A Demonstration Project for Coastal Golf Courses!
Dr D Green, Prof J McKinley (Deadline for applications: Wednesday, January 17, 2024). Competition fully funded, 42-month PhD project is part of the QUADRAT Doctoral Training Partnership (Students Worldwide)
All coastlines are subject to dynamic change through wave and wind action resulting in significant loss or gain of land through erosion and/or accretion. Many areas around the World are increasingly being exposed to such threats resulting in partial or complete loss of assets in the most severe cases. In the future, climate change will likely accelerate the rate of coastline change with rising sea levels and more frequent and energetic storms. Widespread evidence of climate change impacts on coasts around the world, when coupled with increasing demands being placed on dwindling management budgets, and the need to protect valuable coastal assets suggests the need for new, more cost-effective, approaches to local coastal management problems.
A focus on developing new, low-cost, and environmentally sustainable solutions will be important. This research project will design, model, implement and test a novel coastal engineering solution for the protection of coastal assets at risk, specifically golf courses. A hybrid-protection solution using sustainable materials bound into a flexible and tethered structure, allowing wind- and water-borne material to penetrate, and be captured by the structure, will be developed, and tested. This will be a low-cost structure easily installed, maintained, and managed at the local community level.
New MSP research paper is now available online: Land-Sea-Interactions in MSP and ICZM: A regional perspective from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea
We are happy to promote our newly published joint research paper in Marine Policy Journal (Elsevier): Land-Sea-Interactions in MSP and ICZM: A regional perspective from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, a collaboration of:
• t-ELIKA, Venice, Italy
• Priority Actions Programme/Regional Activity Centre (PAP/RAC), Split, Croatia
• Prostorsko načrtovanje, Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Center for Coastal and Marine Study (CCMS), Varna, Bulgaria
• Planning Authority, Malta
• IUAV University of Venice, Department of Architecture and Arts, Planning and Climate Change Lab, Venice, Italy
• Institute of Marine Science (ISMAR), National Research Council (CNR), Venice, Italy
Land-sea interactions are relevant for marine spatial planning. Natural processes at the land-sea interface shape the terrestrial and the marine environment, influencing coastal and maritime activities in the area. Coastal and sea uses also hold numerous land-sea interactions, calling for infrastructures and services both on the land and the sea side.
In this paper the Guidelines for LSI in MSP proposed by UNEP/MAP PAP/RAC to provide practical support to land-sea interaction analysis within MSP are applied in four case studies: Bulgaria, Italy, Malta and Montenegro, within formal and informal marine spatial planning processes. The Guidelines have proved to be flexible, scalable and suitable to tiered approaches. They were adapted to the specificities of different planning, geographic, governance contexts, responding to the state and the needs of MSP development in the different countries, including non-EU ones.
CCMS at the MSP4BIO 3rd General Assembly in Split, 6-8 November 2023
The physical meeting of our MSP4BIO 3rd General Assembly was successfully held on 6 and 7 of November 2023 in Split, Croatia with more than 30 participants from all partner organisations. The event was hosted by the MSP4BIO partner PAP/RAC (Priority Actions Programme Regional Activity Centre). At the meeting partners got together to take stock of the project’s progress and achievements and discuss the way forward to successful project implementation.
Back-to-back with the 3rd General Assembly Meeting, on 8-9 November 2023, a SeaSketch training for MSP4BIO Workshop (hybrid, in-person and online) were conducted in PAP/RAC premise. Using SeaSketch, a mapping tool currently used for MSP, participants learned how to:
● Develop and conduct map-based surveys to gather information on the distribution of valued ocean spaces and ecosystem services.
● Use collaborative geodesign tools to draw, share, build and evaluate spatial scenarios that meet regional goals and objectives.
We leave motivated and energised for our upcoming period, and well-organised for our upcoming interactions with MSP4BIO Communities of Practice.
Stay tuned for further updates following the MSP4BIO website and social media:
https://msp4bio.eu/
https://twitter.com/MSP4BIO_Project
