Case Studies

Determine hot spots of aggregation to support:

• Management plans


• Fisheries Regulated areas (FRA),


• Marine Protected areas (MPA)

• ESD-MED (ensemble Species Distribution models) applied to the Mediterranean Sea


• ESD-MED based on survey data coupled with biogeochemical (LTL) outputs from MED-BFM

To explore the usefulness of new Copernicus Marine Service capability for mapping and forecasting pollutant transport for Mediterranean aquaculture farming

Food and Agriculture Organisation and Fugro

Testimonial on importance of NECCTON contribution Dr. Laura Gomez Navarro, IMEDEA (Spain) and Utrecht University (Netherlands)

New Copernicus Marine Service product that maps and forecast pollutants (micro-macro plastic, oil, trace metals, POPs) in marine ecosystems

• Application of marine spatial planning methods to monitoring effectiveness of biodiversity conservation in a MPA in the Adriatic Sea (HR3000469 – Viški akvatorij)

• Environmental conditions


• Mapping of relevant benthos species 


• Habitat maps for small pelagic and unspecified apex predator, multispecies distribution maps from Ecospace model 


• Multiple pressure maps

Mapping the impact of fish trawling on ecosystem functioning in the north-western Black Sea.

• Maps of benthic traits


• Maps of benthic species biomass

• Spatial meta-analysis to show where a climate signal is projected to emerge for multiple parameters related to biodiversity conservation.

• Maps showing areas of climate change hotspots/bright spots, overlaid with locations of current/planned MPAs and other significant features.

Projections of physics, biogeochemistry and Lower Trophic Levels for the North West Shelf

• To understand and to simulate the past and future dynamics of small pelagic fish in the Bay of Biscay, including the effects of environmental conditions (temperature, plankton dynamics) and human pressure (fishing).

• To build robust projections by combining multiple higher trophic level and lower trophic level models and evaluate uncertainty (models ensemble)

• To identify the key drivers of the food web dynamics, and how they vary in time and space

Small pelagic fish biomass, and unspecified fish biomass from:

• Ecosystem models


• Species distribution models


• Species population models

Phyto- and Zooplankton surveys by PNMI

• Classical counting under a microscope (phytoplankton)


• Quantitative imaging of zooplankton using Zooscan


• Some Metabarcoding (eDNA)

• To inform the models


• To test the correlation with sardine catch


• Impact of zooplankton size on sardine stock

• physics & Lower trophic level outputs


• Zooplankton diversity fields of the Copernicus Marine Service Global /IBI model 


• Fish biomass fields of the Copernicus Marine Service Global/IBI model 


• Correlation between the Ushant fronts (physics), zooplankton, and fish in the model

To explore & demonstrate that we can provide complementary information on the biogeochemical conditions, pollution and plastics, as well as biomass for zooplankton and fish at the sites of the protected marine Areas in the vicinity of Svalbard.

• Meso-zooplankton 


• Dissolved organic matter (DOM) and particulate organic matter (POM)


• Fish biomass


• Small pelagic biomass (GLO) (important for sea birds),


• micro-plastic,


• Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and emerging organic contaminants (EOCs). 

Assess the consequences of climate change on fish biomass and therefore the fisheries potential in future climate scenarios.

Fish biomass and small pelagics biomass

Develop ways to use NECCTON (and Copernicus Marine Service ) products for Marine Protected Area monitoring and assessment in the German part of the Baltic Sea, with focus on biodiversity and fisheries.

• Mesozooplankton biomass

• Dissolved organic matter (DOM) and particulate organic matter (POM)

• Benthic biogeochemistry

• Small pelagic Biomass

• Unspecified fish biomass

Provide a demonstrator allowing users (stakeholders) to run projections of changes (e.g., 30 years) of key tuna species with fishing scenarios including spatial management measures and selected climate IPCC scenarios of greenhouse gas release

Historical (hindcast) and future (projections under IPCC scenarios) simulations for ocean variables (temperature, currents, primary production, dissolved oxygen, zooplankton and micronekton)

• Assess the feasibility of conducting a monitoring of the common and spotted dolphin

• Evaluate the impact of climate change on the distribution of the species

• Pelagic lower trophic level products: mesozooplankton, micronekton 


• The species distribution model: NAWH-cetaceans 

• What is the future potential fisheries production in the open oceans?
• How will climate change impact the balance between functional groups (small/large pelagics etc.)?

• FEISTY


• SEAPODYM

To explore the usefulness of new Copernicus Marine Service capability for mapping and forecasting pollutant transport for Mediterranean aquaculture farming

New Copernicus Marine Service product that maps and forecast pollutants (micro-macro plastic, oil, trace metals, POPs) in marine ecosystems

Determine hot spots of aggregation to support:

• Management plans
• Fisheries Regulated areas (FRA),
• Marine Protected areas (MPA)

• ESD-MED (ensemble Species Distribution models) applied to the Mediterranean Sea
• ESD-MED based on survey data coupled with biogeochemical (LTL) outputs from MED-BFM