MEDIX · Marine Environmental DynamIcs and seX-based analysis for climate change adaptation in marine spatial planning
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-12-28 → 2023-12-27
- EU contribution
- €269,003
- Participants
- 3
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Marine Environmental DynamIcs and seX-based analysis for climate change adaptation in marine spatial planning
Marine spatial planning (MSP) is expanding worldwide, changing the use of up to 20% of the surface of the planet. So far, the approach used for MSP has been very static, only picturing the current situation at sea, with difficulties in projecting visions and adapting to future conditions. Dynamic issues such as climate change that can differently affect marine organisms because of sex-based responses, are still ignored. The inclusion of environmental variability and sex-based analysis in MSP remains challenging, because sex was still overlooked in biological studies and because existing methods and tools were not able to address dynamics effectively. Although integrating sex into research design and analysis has produced new insights and solutions in biomedicine, artificial intelligence, and other disciplines, this has yet to occur for marine biology and MSP. The Marie Skłodowska Curie Action MEDIX “Marine Environmental DynamIcs and seX based analysis for climate change adaptation in marine spatial planning” looked at addressing climate change adaptation in marine areas through a novel approach to MSP that incorporated for the first time dynamic environmental changes and built on a sex-based analysis. Objectives of MEDIX have been to i) to study how biological sex influences biological mechanisms at multiple levels of biological organization (ie, organismal, population, and community levels), ii) to understand how climate induced changes will affect the capacity of marine systems to provide ecosystem services, and iii) to explore strategies for a dynamic climate change adaptation in MSP. I developed MEDIX through the collaboration between CNR ISMAR and Stanford University, USA, where I spent two years as a Visiting Scholar.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
To effectively adapt to climate change (CC), a novel more dynamic approach in governing the oceans is needed. Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) – a public process aimed to allocate human uses at sea while maintaining multiple ecosystem services (ES) – as currently implemented is too static to adequately incorporate climate refugia and CC responses of marine life. The goal of my project is to provide a stronger, more complete model for the sustainable planning of marine ES in the California Current. MEDIX will significantly improve the traditional MSP process in a context of a fast-changing climate by creating a novel approach to MSP that incorporates a dynamic ES assessment under CC scenarios with a sex-based analysis of CC effects on species and ecosystems, to elaborate a guideline for adaptation actions in MSP. The California Current will provide an ideal case study to test the new approach for adaptation strategies to maintain the ES.Through the MSCA Global Fellowship, I will reinforce my expertise in ecosystem-based management in MSP with new interdisciplinary expertise and skills in ES modeling under CC and gendered innovations, which I will transfer back to Europe, where the development of adaptive strategies for MSP is relevant and timely. The GF envisages: i) an outgoing period at Stanford University, USA, where I will be involved in a major initiative to revise and adapt the marine protected areas network of the California Current within the national MSP initiative, in collaboration with governments, and ii) a return period at CNR, Italy, where I intend to build on and transfer the skills acquired to elaborate the adaptive MSP guidelines that I will make accessible to relevant European stakeholders through a process of science-to-policy and science-for-society engagement in the Mediterranean. At the end of my MSCA, CNR is expected to offer me a full-time research contract to enable me to continue expanding my research and taking its impact to further areas.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE · RomaCoordinatorItaly
- BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY · STANFORDUnited States
- UNIVERSITA IUAV DI VENEZIA · VeneziaItaly
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union