Seagrass (Posidonia oceanica) monitoring in western Mediterranean: implications for management and conservation

The seagrass Posidonia oceanica is extensively monitored in Mediterranean coastal waters and is an ideal candidate for an eco-regional assessment of the coastal ecosystem. The aim of this study is to evaluate the potential of P. oceanica as eco-regional indicator for its assessment at the scale of Mediterranean basin. For this purpose, regional and national P. oceanica monitoring programmes are identified, and their data and metadata are collected and compared in terms of objectives, strategies, sampling designs and sampling methods. The analysis identifies a number of issues concerning data quality, reliability and comparability. In particular, the adoption of different sampling designs and methods may introduce relevant errors when comparing data. The results of this study stress the necessity of carefully planning monitoring programmes. Moreover, it highlights that the adoption of a number of common tools would facilitate all Mediterranean monitoring activities and allows an optimisation of management efforts at an eco-regional scale.     

First occurrence and composition assessment of microplastics in native mussels collected from coastal and offshore areas of the northern and central Adriatic Sea

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In recent years, the occurrence of microplastics in the aquatic environment has gathered increasing scientific interest. Several studies have shown...     

Assessing human-induced pressures on coastal areas with publicly available data

The assessment of human-induced pressures on the coastal area is essential to target management plans effectively, and moreover is required by the EU Water Framework Directive. A simple and cost-effective assessment of human-induced pressures on the coastal zone is applied using two methodologies: a qualitative visual assessment which uses satellite images; and a quantitative assessment based on governmental census data. These methods are applied to defined areas (23 areas) of four Italian regions: Liguria, Tuscany, Latium and Sardinia. The results show a high agreement (83%) between these two methods, in which only four of the 23 areas are classified differently. These differences may mainly be ascribed to the qualitative or quantitative properties of the methods, and to the different geographical units adopted. These characteristics however provide complementary information, which suggests that the application of both proposed methods confirms reliability and allows fine-tuning of the assessment. The pressure assessment proposed is simple, time and cost-effective, and repeatable over time and space. It therefore can be applied in different contexts to respond to legislative requirements or to target management plans and remedial actions effectively.     

Red-list status and extinction risk of the world's whales,dolphins, and porpoises

To understand the scope and scale of the loss of biodiversity, tools are required that can be applied in a standardized manner to all species globally, spanning realms from land to the open ocean. We used data from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List to provide a synthesis of the conservation status and extinction risk of cetaceans. One in 4 cetacean species (26% of 92 species) was threatened with extinction (i.e., critically endangered, endangered, or vulnerable) and 11% were near threatened. Ten percent of cetacean species were data deficient, and we predicted that 2–3 of these species may also be threatened. The proportion of threatened cetaceans has increased: 15% in 1991, 19% in 2008, and 26% in 2021. The assessed conservation status of 20% of species has worsened from 2008 to 2021, and only 3 moved into categories of lesser threat. Cetacean species with small geographic ranges were more likely to be listed as threatened than those with large ranges, and those that occur in freshwater (100% of species) and coastal (60% of species) habitats were under the greatest threat. Analysis of odontocete species distributions revealed a global hotspot of threatened small cetaceans in Southeast Asia, in an area encompassing the Coral Triangle and extending through nearshore waters of the Bay of Bengal, northern Australia, and Papua New Guinea and into the coastal waters of China. Improved management of fisheries to limit overfishing and reduce bycatch is urgently needed to avoid extinctions or further declines, especially in coastal areas of Asia, Africa, and South America.     

Classification of coastal waters according to the new Italian water legislation and comparison with the European Water Directive

New legislation for the protection of inland surface waters, transitional waters, coastal waters and ground waters has recently been established in Italy. This law presents a new integrated approach, where all water bodies are considered as complex ecosystems to be studied in each of their components. The new concept of environmental quality of the water body, based on the ecological and chemical status, is also introduced. At the same time (i.e. the end of 2000), the European Community approved the European Water Framework Directive based on the same basic environmental concepts and criteria of the new Italian law. This paper analyses the important points and innovations required by the new Italian legislation for monitoring and classification of marine coastal waters. Details of definitions, parameters, analysis and monitoring programs are discussed. A comparison with the European Water Framework Directive is eventually given, underlining the specific characteristics of the Mediterranean sea, which have to be taken into consideration when applying the European Directive to this particular ecoregion.