The goal
DEVOTES Project aims at improving understanding of human activities impacts (cumulative, synergistic, antagonistic) and variations due to climate change on marine biodiversity, using long-term series (pelagic and benthic). A major aim of DEVOTES is to test the indicators proposed by the EC, and develop new ones for assessment at species, habitats and ecosystems level, for the status classification of marine waters, integrating the indicators into a unified assessment of the biodiversity and the cost-effective implementation of the indicators (i.e. by defining monitoring and assessment strategies).
DEVOTES is thus also intended to develop/test/validate innovative integrative modelling tools to further strengthen our understanding of ecosystem and biodiversity changes (space & time); such tools can be used by statutory bodies, Small Medium Enterprises and marine research institutes to monitor biodiversity, applying both empirical and automatic data acquisition. This objective will demonstrate the utility of innovative monitoring systems capable of efficiently providing data on a range of parameters (including those from non-EU countries), used as indicators of Good Environmental Status, and for the integration of the information into a unique assessment.
Workpackges
WP1 - is designed to determine the relative contribution of human pressures to the status/changes of biodiversity, our current understanding and monitoring adequacy, and the challenges of shiftting baselines of climatic change.
WP2 - to determine socio-economic implications of maintaining or changing monitoring and management practices aimed at achieving and maintaining GES
selvittää asianmukaisen meriympäristön seurannan ja hoitokäytäntöjen sosioekonomiset vaikutukset
WP3 -is designed to review existing GES indicators; identify strengths and gaps. Develop and validate new indicators.
WP4 - to develop a tool kit for modelling to address key questions regarding the state of biodiversity and its relationship to food-webs, seafloor integrity, human impacts and climate change, going far beyond the state-of-the-art in previous EU projects.
WP5 - to develop innovative monitoring systems to refine and deepen our ability to detect enviromental/biotic variables utilized in marine monitoring
WP6 - to take information from and build on WPs 1-5 to develop and validate a toolbox, which integrates bodiversity assessments at various scales, from local to sub-regional, culminating ina mechanism for regional-scale characterization
WP7 - to build a network with key stakeholders and to provide effective and efficient dissemination of the DEVOTES project.
WP8 - to ensure the achievement of project objectives and deliverables, by means of an adequate use of the resources allocated to each partner and WP.
DEVOTES and MSFD
The outcomes of DEVOTES will contribute towards fulfilling knowledge gaps and existing needs in the assessment of environmental status, within the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, in an harmonized way across the Mediterranean, Baltic, North Seas and the Atlantic Ocean.
More information
Division manager Anna-Stiina.Heiskanen
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+358 40 825 8188