Biodiversity Monitoring in Mediterranean Marine Protected Areas: Scientific and Methodological Challenges

Biodiversity is a portmanteau word to indicate the variety of life at all levels from genes to ecosystems, but it is often simplistically equated to species richness; the word ecodiversity has thus been coined to address habitat variety. Biodiversity represents the core of the natural capital, and as such needs to be quantified and followed over time. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are a major tool for biodiversity conservation at sea. Monitoring of both species and habitat diversity in MPAs is therefore mandatory and must include both inventory and periodic surveillance activities. In the case of inventories, the ideal would be to census all species and all habitats, but while the latter goal can be within reach, the former seems unattainable. Species inventory should be commeasured to investigation effort, while habitat inventory should be based on mapping. Both inventories may profit from suitability spatial modelling. Periodic surveillance actions should privilege conspicuous species and priority habitats. Efficient descriptor taxa and ecological indices are recommended to evaluate environmental status. While it seems obvious that surveillance activities should be carried out with regular recurrence, diachronic inventories and mapping are rarely carried out. Time series are of prime importance to detect marine ecosystem change even in the absence of direct human impacts.

Trawl impacts on the relative status of biotic communities of seabed sedimentary habitats in 24 regions worldwide

Bottom trawling is widespread globally and impacts seabed habitats. However, risks from trawling remain unquantified at large scales in most regions. We address these issues by synthesizing evidence on the impacts of different trawl-gear types, seabed recovery rates, and spatial distributions of trawling intensity in a quantitative indicator of biotic status (relative amount of pretrawling biota) for sedimentary habitats, where most bottom-trawling occurs, in 24 regions worldwide. Regional average status relative to an untrawled state (=1) was high (>0.9) in 15 regions, but <0.7 in three (European) regions and only 0.25 in the Adriatic Sea. Across all regions, 66% of seabed area was not trawled (status = 1), 1.5% was depleted (status = 0), and 93% had status > 0.8. These assessments are first order, based on parameters estimated with uncertainty from meta-analyses; we recommend regional analyses to refine parameters for local specificity. Nevertheless, our results are sufficiently robust to highlight regions needing more effective management to reduce exploitation and improve stock sustainability and seabed environmental status—while also showing seabed status was high (>0.95) in regions where catches of trawled fish stocks meet accepted benchmarks for sustainable exploitation, demonstrating that environmental benefits accrue from effective fisheries management. Furthermore, regional seabed status was related to the proportional area swept by trawling, enabling preliminary predictions of regional status when only the total amount of trawling is known. This research advances seascape-scale understanding of trawl impacts in regions around the world, enables quantitative assessment of sustainability risks, and facilitates implementation of an ecosystem approach to trawl fisheries management globally.

Recycling Behaviour of Urban Households in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

This chapter is aimed at providing new insights into the perception and determinants of municipal solid waste behaviour. A quantitative data set was obtained and analyzed by directly interviewing 579 urban households in in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta stratified by urban-type level. Binary Probit model and OLS regression indicate the significant influences of urbanization level, organization membership, the concern to environmental status, and education level of households. Finally, results reveal that the municipal solid waste recycling level can be significantly increased by motivating urban households' incentives; therefore, policymakers in Vietnam as well as in developing countries should also provide more incentive to households by subsidizing the recycled materials (i.e., paper and unusable metal) and well-managed informal recycling systems including itinerant waste buyers.

Impact of Urban Planning Activities on the Environmental Status of Human Settlements and Finding Ways to Improve It by Means of Urban Development Measures

Постановка задачи. Исследуется влияние мероприятий по градостроительству, планировке населенных мест на экологическое состояние поселений, а также пути улучшения экологии мерами градостроительства. Результаты. Методом экстраполяции исследована динамика сельского и городского населения, осуществлен прогноз на перспективу. Определено гигиеническое значение планировки территории. Рассмотрены истоки возникновения и причины развития наиболее общих экологических проблем урбанизированной территории. Раскрыты такие наиболее актуальные проблемы крупных городов, как несанкционированные свалки, точечная застройка, высокая плотность населения, сокращение площади зеленых насаждений и др.; предложены мероприятия по их решению (снижению негативного влияния) на законодательном и исполнительном уровнях. Выводы. Результаты исследования позволяют сделать вывод о существенном положительном влиянии своевременных градостроительных мер на экологическую ситуацию в городах. Statement of the problem. The problem of identifying the impact of urban planning activities on the environmental status of human settlements and finding ways to improve it by urban development measures is considered. Results. The dynamics of rural and urban populations has been investigated by means of the extrapolation method and the projections have been made. The hygienic requirements to the territorial planning have been determined. Causes and origins of the most common environmental problems of urban areas have been examined. The most urgent problems of cities, such as illegal dumps, infill development, high population density, reduction of urban green spaces, etc. were revealed. The activities for reducing the negative impact were proposed at both the legislative as well as executive levels. Conclusions. The findings of the study suggest that there is a significant positive impact of timely well-grounded urban planning measures on the ecological situation in cities.

Access to Environmental Cognitive Alternatives Predicts Pro-Environmental Activist Behavior

We expand on the plausible role of access to cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo (i.e., the ability of people to imagine what a sustainable relationship with nature would look like) in motivating pro-environmental collective action. Using a representative sample of Canadians on age, gender, and ethnicity ( N = 1,029) we evaluate the associations between access to environmental cognitive alternatives, politicized environmental identity, and willingness to engage in pro-environmental activist behavior. Additionally, we move beyond self-reported behavior by giving participants the opportunity to write and sign a pro-environmental letter to the Canadian Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. Our results suggest that access to cognitive alternatives is associated with stronger politicized environmental identity, greater willingness to engage in pro-environmental activist behavior, and increased likelihood of writing and signing a pro-environmental letter. All methods and analyses follow our preregistration and all materials and data are openly available.

Assessing the First MSFD Implementation Cycle in Greece under Biodiversity and Contaminants Descriptors

The present work constitutes an assessment of the first implementation cycle of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive 2008/56/EC in Greece by focusing on biodiversity and contaminants, i.e., descriptors 1 (biodiversity), 4 (food webs), 6 (seafloor integrity), 8 (contaminants), and 9 (contaminants in seafood), and by following the directive’s requirements regarding Articles 8—Initial Assessment, 9—Definition of Good Environmental Status, 10—Establishment of Environmental Targets, 11—Monitoring Programmes, and 13—Programmes of Measures. In this study, the analysis that was conducted investigated the integration of the Com Dec 2010/477/EU criteria and the indicators that have been applied for each descriptor and the approaches and standards that have been used in order to determine the adequacy of the directive’s implementation towards the achievement of the GES, the consistency of Articles 8, 9, 10, 11, and 13, and the integration of existing EU legislation and regional/ international agreements or policies as well as the level of coherence among EU Mediterranean MSs. Overall, Greece addressed the requirements of Articles 8, 9, and 10 rather inadequately for D1, D4, D6 and partially adequately for D8, D9, integrating existing legislation to a certain extent. The implementation of Article 11 was satisfactory for all of the descriptors regarding monitoring the needs and the progress towards GES, whereas the measures that were established under Article 13 need to be improved in the forthcoming update.

Maritime Spatial Planning and Protection of the Marine Environment

Protection and preservation of the marine environment is a priority under international law, as codified and further developed in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Nonetheless, the current state of the marine environment questions whether the approach adopted in the UNCLOS and other legal instruments, whereby each type of pollution is addressed separately, really suffices to ensure good environmental status. For this reason, new tools have been developed, including marine (or maritime) spatial planning (MSP) and integrated coastal zone management (ICZM). This article discusses MSP and its role in ensuring protection of the marine environment, both within and beyond areas under national jurisdiction.