Suchergebnisse

The continuing degradation of marine ecosystems is widely highlighted as having a significant impact on services they provide for human well-being. To this end, especially during the last decade, numerous national, regional and international aspirations, targets and commitments have been made in order to reverse the detrimental trend affecting the ocean health, which is expected to accelerate in the immediate future. Restoration actions are becoming a common strategy to speed-up the recovery pathway of degraded ecosystems. This recognition also depends on the fact that, in some cases, in addition to traditional conservation strategies (e.g. Marine Protected Areas and Maritime Spatial Planning), "active" restoration may be the only politically feasible approach able to increase the flow of marine ecosystem services to stakeholders, ensuring, at the same time, the mitigation of threats to coastal environments in a reasonable time lag. Given the time-bound target aimed to effectively protect/restore on third of global ecosystems in the upcoming decade, concrete considerations about the potential for scaling-up the restoration interventions across coastal ecosystems are required to prioritise and improve the strategies aimed to cope the urgent conservation issues faced by marine ecosystems at global scale. Here, capitalizing on the most upgraded information on restoration efforts worldwide carried out over nearly five decades, a synthetic (but not exhaustive) analysis of progresses is showed, which could helps to better address the upscaling issue of marine conservation strategies in the immediate future. Keywords: marine ecosystem restoration, sustainable development, coastal habitats. ; A degradação contínua dos ecossistemas marinhos é amplamente destacada como tendo um impacto significativo nos serviços que fornecem para o bem-estar humano. Para esse fim, especialmente durante a última década, numerosas aspirações, metas e compromissos nacionais, regionais e internacionais foram assumidos no sentido de reverter a tendência prejudicial que afeta a saúde dos oceanos, que se espera uma aceleração em um futuro imediato. Ações de restauração estão se tornando uma estratégia comum para acelerar a recuperação de ecossistemas degradados. Esse reconhecimento também depende do fato de que, em alguns casos, além das estratégias tradicionais de conservação (por exemplo: Áreas Marinhas Protegidas e Ordenamento do Territorial Marítimo), a restauração "ativa" pode ser a única abordagem politicamente viável capaz de aumentar o fluxo de serviços do ecossistema marinho aos envolvidos, garantindo, ao mesmo tempo, a mitigação das ameaças aos ambientes costeiros num lapso de tempo razoável. Dada a meta com limite de tempo destinada a proteger/restaurar efetivamente um terço dos ecossistemas globais na próxima década, considerações concretas sobre o potencial de ampliação das intervenções de restauração em ecossistemas costeiros são necessárias para priorizar e melhorar as estratégias destinadas a lidar com a urgência de questões de conservação enfrentadas pelos ecossistemas marinhos em escala global. Aqui, capitalizando as informações mais atualizadas sobre os esforços de restauração em todo o mundo realizados ao longo de quase cinco décadas, uma análise sintética (mas não exaustiva) dos progressos é mostrada, o que pode ajudar a resolver melhor a questão do aumento das estratégias de conservação marinha no futuro imediato. Palavras-chave: restauração do ecossistema marinho, desenvolvimento sustentável, habitats costeiros.

Abstract. This paper provides a methodology for classifying samples of significant wave-height peaks in homogeneous subsets in terms of the atmospheric circulation patterns behind the observed extreme wave conditions. Then, a methodology is given for the computation of the overall extreme value distribution by starting from the distributions fitted to each single subset. To this end, the k-means clustering technique is used to classify the shape of the wind fields that occurred simultaneously to and prior to the occurrences of the extreme wave events. This results in a small number of characteristic circulation patterns related to as many subsets of extreme wave values. After fitting an extreme value distribution to each subset, bootstrapping is used to reconstruct the omni-circulation pattern's extreme value distribution. The methodology is applied to several locations along the Italian buoy network, and it is concluded from the obtained results that it yields a two-fold advantage: first, it is capable of identifying clearly differentiated subsets driven by homogeneous circulation patterns; second, it allows one to estimate high-return-period quantiles consistent with those resulting from the usual extreme value analysis. In particular, the circulation patterns highlighted are analyzed in the context of the Mediterranean Sea's atmospheric climatology and are shown to be due to well-known cyclonic systems typically crossing the Mediterranean basin.

Abstract. Coastal vulnerability is evaluated against inundation risk triggered by wave run-up through the evaluation of vulnerability levels (referred to as VLs) introduced by Bosom and Jiménez (2011). VLs are assessed through different wave climate characterizations, referring to regional (offshore wave climate) or local (nearshore wave climate) scales. The study is set along the Bay of Lalzit, a coastal area near Durrës (Albania). The analysis reveals that the results vary due to uncertainties inherent in the run-up estimation, showing that the computational procedure should be developed by taking into account detailed information about the local wave climate. Different approaches in choosing wave characteristics for run-up estimation significantly affect the estimate of shoreline vulnerability. The analysis also shows the feasibility and challenges of applying VL estimates in contexts characterized by limited data availability through targeted field measurements of the coast geomorphology and an overall understanding of the recent coastal dynamics and related controlling factors.

The development of offshore wind farms (OWFs) and the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) comprise two main elements for the production of clean energy, and the simultaneous maintenance and protection of biodiversity in the Mediterranean and Black seas. Successful, efficient, and sustainable coupling of these two aspects presumes that the criteria for selecting suitable locations for the deployment of OWFs should not only include technical-engineering terms (e.g. high wind energy efficiency, bottom suitability, inland infrastructures) but also ecological–environmental considerations (e.g. the least possible impact on biodiversity, ecosystem functioning) and socio-economic aspects (e.g. effects on coastal and marine activities, development of marine spatial planning). In the context of the FP7 CoCoNet project, the integration between OWFs and MPAs is based on four main steps: (i) the identification of existing (networks of) MPAs focusing on the biodiversity distribution patterns and current legislation, (ii) the coupling of offshore wind potential within networks of MPAs, (iii) the evaluation of the knowledge gained up to date and the theoretical approaches at the two pilot sites of the Mediterranean and Black sea basins, and (iv) the development of the "Smart Wind Chart", a convenient and rational tool addressed to scientists and policy makers for the evaluation of maritime policy management schemes. The latter step comprises the core of this work.

The development of offshore wind farms (OWFs) and the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) comprise two main elements for the production of clean energy, and the simultaneous maintenance and protection of biodiversity in the Mediterranean and Black seas. Successful, efficient, and sustainable coupling of these two aspects presumes that the criteria for selecting suitable locations for the deployment of OWFs should not only include technical-engineering terms (e.g. high wind energy efficiency, bottom suitability, inland infrastructures) but also ecological–environmental considerations (e.g. the least possible impact on biodiversity, ecosystem functioning) and socio-economic aspects (e.g. effects on coastal and marine activities, development of marine spatial planning). In the context of the FP7 CoCoNet project, the integration between OWFs and MPAs is based on four main steps: (i) the identification of existing (networks of) MPAs focusing on the biodiversity distribution patterns and current legislation, (ii) the coupling of offshore wind potential within networks of MPAs, (iii) the evaluation of the knowledge gained up to date and the theoretical approaches at the two pilot sites of the Mediterranean and Black sea basins, and (iv) the development of the "Smart Wind Chart", a convenient and rational tool addressed to scientists and policy makers for the evaluation of maritime policy management schemes. The latter step comprises the core of this work.

14 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, supplementary material https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.626843/full#supplementary-material ; Restoration is considered an effective strategy to accelerate the recovery of biological communities at local scale. However, the effects of restoration actions in the marine ecosystems are still unpredictable. We performed a global analysis of published literature to identify the factors increasing the probability of restoration success in coastal and marine systems. Our results confirm that the majority of active restoration initiatives are still concentrated in the northern hemisphere and that most of information gathered from restoration efforts derives from a relatively small subset of species. The analysis also indicates that many studies are still experimental in nature, covering small spatial and temporal scales. Despite the limits of assessing restoration effectiveness in absence of a standardized definition of success, the context (degree of human impact, ecosystem type, habitat) of where the restoration activity is undertaken is of greater relevance to a successful outcome than how (method) the restoration is carried out. Contrary to expectations, we found that restoration is not necessarily more successful closer to protected areas (PA) and in areas of moderate human impact. This result can be motivated by the limits in assessing the success of interventions and by the tendency of selecting areas in more obvious need of restoration, where the potential of actively restoring a degraded site is more evident. Restoration sites prioritization considering human uses and conservation status present in the region is of vital importance to obtain the intended outcomes and galvanize further actions. ; Research funded by the EU project MERCES of the European Union's Horizon 2020 research (Grant agreement No. 689518, http://www.merces-project.eu). ; Research funded by the EU project MERCES of the European Union's Horizon 2020 research (Grant agreement No. 689518, http://www.merces-project.eu) ; Peer reviewed

Restoration is considered an effective strategy to accelerate the recovery of biological communities at local scale. However, the effects of restoration actions in the marine ecosystems are still unpredictable. We performed a global analysis of published literature to identify the factors increasing the probability of restoration success in coastal and marine systems. Our results confirm that the majority of active restoration initiatives are still concentrated in the northern hemisphere and that most of information gathered from restoration efforts derives from a relatively small subset of species. The analysis also indicates that many studies are still experimental in nature, covering small spatial and temporal scales. Despite the limits of assessing restoration effectiveness in absence of a standardized definition of success, the context (degree of human impact, ecosystem type, habitat) of where the restoration activity is undertaken is of greater relevance to a successful outcome than how (method) the restoration is carried out. Contrary to expectations, we found that restoration is not necessarily more successful closer to protected areas (PA) and in areas of moderate human impact. This result can be motivated by the limits in assessing the success of interventions and by the tendency of selecting areas in more obvious need of restoration, where the potential of actively restoring a degraded site is more evident. Restoration sites prioritization considering human uses and conservation status present in the region is of vital importance to obtain the intended outcomes and galvanize further actions ; Research funded by the EU project MERCES of the European Union's Horizon 2020 research (Grant agreement No. 689518