Assessment of goods and services, vulnerability, and conservation status of European seabed biotopes: a stepping stone towards ecosystem-based marine spatial management

Abstract

The goal of ecosystem-based marine spatial management is to maintain marine ecosystems in a healthy, productive and resilient condition; hence, they can sustainably provide the needed goods and services for human welfare. However, the increasing pressures upon the marine realm threaten marine ecosystems, especially seabed biotopes, and thus a well-planned approach of managing use of marine space is essential to achieve sustainability. The relative value of seabed biotopes, evaluated on the basis of goods and services, is an important starting point for the spatial management of marine areas. Herein, 56 types of European seabed biotopes and their related goods, services, sensitivity issues, and conservation status were compiled, the latter referring to management and protection tools which currently apply for these biotopes at European or international level. Fishing activities, especially by benthic trawls, and marine pollution are the main threats to European seabed biotopes. Increased seawater turbidity, dredged sediment disposal, coastal constructions, biological invasions, mining, extraction of raw materials, shipping-related activities, tourism, hydrocarbon exploration, and even some practices of scientific research, also exert substantial pressure. Although some first steps have been taken to protect the European sea beds through international agreements and European and national legislation, a finer scale of classification and assessment of marine biotopes is considered crucial in shaping sound priorities and management guidelines towards the effective conservation and sustainability of European marine resources.

Coralligenous and maërl habitats: predictive modelling to identify their spatial distributions across the Mediterranean Sea

“…They are the result of the building activities of algal and animal constructors, counterbalanced by physical, as well as biological, eroding processes. Because of their extent, biodiversity and production, coralligenous and maërl habitats rank among the most important ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea [17][18][19][20][21] , and they are considered of great significance both for fisheries 22 and carbon regulation 23,24 .…”

“…wastewater discharge, aquaculture), which results in increased turbidity and sedimentation, but also direct habitat destruction through artisanal and recreational fishing (e.g. fishnets, long-lines), coastal or offshore construction activities (including submarine cables), and unregulated diving activities and anchoring 17,19,27 . Climate change is also known to affect several key species that are part of coralligenous habitats, by increasing the incidence of thermal anomalies (e.g.…”

Multi-objective spatial tools to inform maritime spatial planning in the Adriatic Sea

“…For the case study area, 12 marine ES were considered: two provisioning services (MESPro: food resources, raw material); three regulating services (MESReg: air quality, disturbance regulation, water quality); three cultural services (MESCult: cognitive benefit, leisure, feel good-warm glove) and four supporting services (MESSup: photosynthesis, nutrient cycling, nursery, biodiversity). MES capacity ranks were adopted from desk research as the studies of Galparsoro et al (2013) and Salomidi et al (2012) provide site specific MES capacity scores. The MES capacity (MEScap) is the arithmetic sum of MES scores for each marine habitat.…”

Ecological mapping and data quality assessment for the needs of ecosystem-based marine spatial management: case study Greek Ionian Sea and the adjacent gulfs

“…The Habitat Type "Reefs" is also a widely distributed ecological component in our study area. However, due to its extremely bulky nature -currently consisting of a large variety of natural habitats, which may differ significantly in terms of their ecological and conservation aspects (Salomidi et al, 2012) -we hereby chose to address only the deepest counterparts, in our case represented by coralligenous formations and deep-water corals. These marine biogenic habitats are well recognized for their high conservation value and vulnerability (Ballesteros, 2006;UNEP, 2007), but have long been neglected by Greek conservation and management plans, due mostly to their deep and thus fairly unknown distribution in the Greek Seas and the wider Eastern Mediterranean.…”