EMECO

Ocean Health

Europe's seas are highly valuable biological and commercial resources. They are highly productive systems supporting a diverse community of marine species, spanning from microbes to marine mammals. Equally they provide valuable resources for commercial fisheries, oil and gas industries, and are fundamental to a huge number of users, ranging from sports fishermen to surfers. This makes for a highly complex web of interactions that is further complicated by natural variability and climate change.

Monitoring changes in the ocean's biological, chemical, and physical state is critical to understanding the interactions between ocean threats and health. Marine monitoring programmes provide the data required to meet the needs of a suite of European Directives and international treaties (OSPAR and HELCOM).  Data generated from monitoring can also be used to initialise, calibrate and validate ecosystem models that provide a mathematical representation of the systems behaviour. Such models can be used to improve our understanding of the system as well as providing a means of predicting the outcome to management action (e.g. reducing riverine nutrient inputs to the sea;  see Eutmod) or the outcome to climate change.

Integrating monitoring, modelling, and research can provide an overall picture of the interactions between and within physical, chemical, and biological components and their responses to change. This process advances understanding of marine community structure and function, and sensitivity to change enabling scientists to provide better advice to policy makers and managers. Further, the increasing availability of data and information coupled with the faster processing from operational monitoring tools and modelling tools support an adaptive ecosystem approach to management.