We are proud to announce that our consortium of 16 partners and subcontractors was awarded the EMODnet Black Sea Checkpoints tender. The concept of EMODnet Sea-Basin Checkpoints was introduced within the Green Paper ‘Marine Knowledge 2020: from seabed mapping to ocean forecasting’ (COM-2012-437). In spite of EU initiatives such as EMODnet, Copernicus and Data Collection Framework (DCF) for Fisheries to deliver seamless layers of marine data across national boundaries, there are still shortcomings with the availability and accessibility of EU marine data.
Data collections have been largely put in place for specific and/or national purposes. There is still an approximate overview on a sea-basin scale of gaps and duplications and there is no overall view of what the priorities are for further data collection or assembly. Thus the EMODnet Checkpoint initiative will start to link to all existing monitoring data and assess them in order to define their future improvements.
Marine Research Ltd. will be active within the field of MPA (Marine Protected Areas) based on the experience and data from the Acoustic Seafloor Classification of Romanian Natura2000 sites. The final goal is to draw a synthesis on large scale analysis of environmental and socioeconomic knowledge in order to assess the Black Sea network of MPAs, and achieve a holistic approach to environmental protection.
The partners are from the neighboring countries of the Black Sea, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Turkey as well as from other European countries as France, United Kingdom, Italy, Greece, and Cyprus.
