Summary
The vegetated habitats of seas, in particular mangroves, salt marshes and seagrasses, cover less than 0.5% of the sea bed. These form earth's blue carbon sinks and account for more than 50%, perhaps as much as 71%, of all carbon storage in ocean sediments. In the future, blue carbon management and monitoring will become an important issue. Therefore, this 30-month-long action aims at enabling macrophytes and the marine vegetation formations to be preserved by suitable management tools, which will ensure that these formations are protected, their degradation are prevented, and they are allowed to be maintained in a satisfactory state of conservation. These management tools will include GIS integration and remote sensing technologies will be utilized in all modelling and mapping activities.
Main activities of the action will include project management and communication activities (MCA), together with implementation activities:
Target groups of the action will be primary and secondary school students and their teachers, local authorities and governments and local communities (local fishermen and private sector developers), and academia.
As a consequence, a guideline will be prepared for a new impact assessment procedure incorporating introduction of laws and strengthening of existing regulations, particularly as regards impact studies to protect species permitting the meadow habitats to be protected. This will take place through support of technologies, such as GIS and remote sensing for mapping, marine litter monitoring using Marine Litter Watch app of ZEWSGES project, ecosystem modelling for understanding complex systems at spatiotemporal scales needed to conserve, manage, and restore ecosystem services (ESs).
Furthermore, the ComBlueC will facilitate more effective communication of scientific knowledge about seagrasses comprising: