Climate Change and Future Marine Ecosystem Service and Biodiversity

FutureMARES

Climate Change and Future Marine Ecosystem Service and Biodiversity

Nature-based solutions for marine conservation Marine and transitional waters support a large portion of the global biodiversity. Harbouring key climate-regulating processes and habitats, they contribute to worldwide food security, in addition to other valuable economic and well-being services and resources. The EU-funded FutureMARES project will deliver new solutions to climate change challenges. This highly multidisciplinary project will investigate socially and economically viable nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Solutions will include the restoration of habitat-forming species that can buffer coastal habitats from climate change effects and improve seawater quality. Conservation actions and sustainable, ecosystem-based harvesting (capture and culture) of seafood are also a project priority. Overall, the aim is to safeguard these ecosystems’ natural capital, biodiversity and services. Marine and transitional ecosystems provide fundamental climate regulation, food provisioning and cultural services. FutureMARES provides socially and economically viable nature-based solutions (NBS) for climate change (CC) adaptation and mitigation to safeguard these ecosystems’ natural capital, biodiversity and services. The program advances understanding of the links between species and community traits, ecological functions and ecosystem services as impacted by CC by analysing the best available data from monitoring programs and conducting targeted experiments and beyond state-of-the-art modelling. Ensemble physical-biogeochemical projections will identify CC hotspots and refugia. Shifts in the distribution and productivity of keystone, structural and endangered species and the consequences for biodiversity will be projected within different CC-NBS scenarios to reveal potential ecological benefits, feedbacks and trade-offs. Novel, social-ecological vulnerability assessments will rank the severity of CC impacts on various ecosystem services and dependent human communities. Complementary analyses at real-world demonstration sites will inform managers and policy-makers on the economic costs and tradeoffs of NBS. These physical, ecological, social and economic analyses will be integrated to develop three, climate-ready NBS: i) restoration of habitat-forming species acting as ‘climate rescuers’ buffering coastal habitats from negative CC effects, improving seawater quality, and sequestering carbon, ii) conservation actions explicitly considering the range of impacts of CC and other hazards on habitat suitability for biota to preserve the integrity of food webs (e.g. marine protected areas) and protect endangered species (e.g. charismatic megafauna), and iii) sustainable, ecosystem-based harvesting (capture and culture) of seafood. FutureMARES is co-developed with policy-makers and managers to ensure impactful and transformative cost-effective actions.

September, 2020

August, 2024

8555000

225000

EU / HORIZON 2020, Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials

Universität Hamburg (UHH), Germany

Ulf Riebesell

Aarhus University (AUD), Denmark
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), Greece
Azti Foundation (AZTI), Spain
Center for Advanced Studies in Arid Zones (CEAZA), Chile
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Cefas), UK
Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR), Portugal
Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), Italy
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain
Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute (CZMAI), Belize
Devon County Council (DCC), UK
Stichting Deltares, Netherlands
Denmarks Technical University (DTU), Denmark
Center for Marine Sciences, University of the Algarve (CCMAR), Portugal
Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), Greece
Iceta Institutio de Ciencias (ICETA), Portugal
Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Limited (IOLR), Israel
Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD), France
Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), France
Marine Biological Association (MBA), UK
Norsk Institutt for Vannforskning (NIVA), Norway
Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), UK
Consortio di Gestione dell’Area Marina Protetta del Promontorio (PMPA), Italy
University of Southampton (SOTON), UK
University of Stockholm (SU), Sweden
Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), Finland
Thuenen-Institute (TI-SF), Germany
WCMC, UK
University of Pisa (UNIPI), Italy
Universtiy of Vigo (UVIGO), Spain
Stichting Wageningen Research (WUR), Netherlands
Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), Netherlands

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