Advancing Black Sea Research and Innovation to Co-Develop Blue Growth within Resilient Ecosystems

Project Information

BRIDGE-BS

Grant agreement ID: 101000240

DOI

10.3030/101000240

Project closed

EC signature date 5 May 2021

Start date 1 June 2021

End date 30 November 2025

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Total cost

€ 9 409 752,50

EU contribution

€ 8 999 877,50

Coordinated by

MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
Türkiye

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BRIDGE-BS (Advancing Black Sea Research and Innovation to Co-Develop Blue Growth within Resilient Ecosystems)

Reporting period: 2022-12-01 to 2024-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Black Sea and its unique ecosystem services are degrading and need to be better managed for the benefit of citizens dependent upon their sustainability. The project develops predictive tools and capabilities necessary to understand and predict the impacts of climate-driven and anthropogenic multi-stressors affecting the Black Sea. The overall objective of BRIDGE-BS is to advance the Black Sea’s marine research and innovation to co-develop Blue Growth pathways under multi stressors for the sustainable utilization of ecosystem services. It develops an ecosystem-based management framework to enable policy uptake and foster citizen engagement. Clustering around three main nodes including Service Dynamics, Blue Growth Incubators, and Empowered Citizens; BRIDGE-BS uses pilot sites at the regional level, with findings contributing to interconnected work packages addressing the four pillars of the Black Sea SRIA. BRIDGE-BS strives to achieve “a healthy, resilient and productive Black Sea by 2030” with awareness of the seriousness of the threat posed by the increasing human-induced pressures on the Black Sea. BRIDGE-BS puts to the forefront the overarching aim of assessing the current state of Black Sea ecosystems, their services, and resilience to the multistressors and creating the necessary means to manage these ecosystems sustainably.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The BRIDGE-BS concept revolves around three interconnected NODES. NODE 1 aims to understand the effect of multistressors on the distribution and sustainability of ecosystem services (ES) provided to society. To achieve this, multistressors that are defined in the Black Sea SRIA are addressed (warming, deoxygenation, acidification, overfishing, invasive species, eutrophication, pollution [including litter], sea/land-based sector activities) under BRIDGE-BS. Database construction and data integration efforts significantly advanced during RP2 despite the setbacks. With database access and a dedicated sub-portal focusing on visualisation, access to BRIDGE-BS results has been made easier with more results now being available. Intercalibration efforts have been finalized and an in-situ, at-sea oceanographic intercomparison has just been completed in summer 2024 (WP1). In WP2, a common forcing set has been prepared and ensemble models have started to advance with climate scenario simulations on this common ground. Key model outputs related to multistressor-ESs relationships have started to emerge both on the Black Sea scale and pilot site-scale. WP3 used both the WP1 database and WP2 simulation results to assess resilience landscapes and tipping points. The implementation of a prototype supervised Bayesian Belief Network and Artificial Neural Network frameworks was accomplished (WP4). They will be used to perform the integrated risk-based assessment and support the development of adaptive management strategies and a sustainable blue economy in the Black Sea, linked to NODE 3. NODE 2 focuses on stimulating blue economy within the safe operating space identified in NODE 1, to elucidate the ESs that can support a sustainable blue economy via i) the strengthening of resource management, ii) the development and application of innovative monitoring technologies (i.e. biogeochemical sensors, genomics, and smart observations). An integrated approach for adopting new technologies for rapid biodiversity assessments is developed and a detailed Black Sea basin-wide e-DNA sampling has been conducted, fulfilling a critical milestone while enabling the work for lab-level extraction, sequencing, and bioinformatic work to kick off. Laboratory-level developments have been finalised and field trials have been launched for key novel technologies that will be used in the future monitoring of multistressors in the ES and blue biotech potential. Further, NODE 2 have now successfully finalized most of the planned seagoing expedition work, accomplishing a critical milestone with many new data and samples at hand. The analyses of expedition results and sample analyses are in progress and this will be communicated in upcoming WP7-8 events to see how the recent trends in multistressors are perceived from the 'landside' (WP6) and will be used to implement a roadmap for the acceleration of smart monitoring technologies will be implemented jointly with WP7. Additionally, 3 rounds of Living Labs have been completed as critical co-creation local platforms and providing input to both NODE 1 and NODE 2. NODE 2 supports innovation via the Black Sea Accelerator andthe High-Tech Summit for the Black Sea by promoting for investors, innovative and viable solutions for a sustainable blue economy. NODE 3 aims to use the scientific and innovation outcomes from BRIDGE-BS to enable the policy uptake of results and for capacity building and outreach to different groups of stakeholders. Intensive capacity building, outreach and communication activities were carried out. Policy dialogue has been launched with a dedicated major in-person event which was followed up by online knowledge-transfer workshops. Tailored policy outreach actions have been designed for both technical-scientific policy stakeholders and non-technical policy, regional development or international relations experts. WP9 has conducted a high number of outreach actions targeting broader age groups and target audiences.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project creates for the first time in the Black Sea a complete inventory of the data on stressors and ecosystem services with the BRIDGE-BS Database. Blue Economy Observatory is being developed as the first open-access database with aggregated economic data, models, and project results. Ensemble of basin-scale models are available and results are being analyzed at the basin scale to identify safe operating conditions for the services generated by Black Sea ecosystems, via the implementation of accurate predictive modelling tools and capabilities. New models that are capable of resolving Blacks Sea-specific processes given in the SRIA are developed. To project future resilience, holistic resilience assessment of the Black Sea ecosystems is conducted. The project advances machine learning techniques for extracting data from big data archives with Decision Support Tools to estimate the risks of management decisions relative to multistressors are under development at different spatial scales, employs artificial intelligence tools (e.g. ANN) to predict state-response dynamics at Pilot Sites and over the whole basin relative to indicators on multistressors together with modelling results. Additionally, the project develops a geospatial Cumulative Effects Assessment tool based on identification, quantification and representation of explicit driver-pressure-state-response relationships. The project's unique design couples process studies in the Pilot Sites to validate technology development, yielding several steps of increases in TRL in smart observations. The Living Labs already went beyond the state-of-the-art in the use of participative approaches such as co-creation of sustainable future scenarios with visioning and backcasting tools. The project also combines knowledge and technology for Industry 4.0 by harnessing Black Sea resources in support of high-potential Blue Economy sectors. The one and only Black Sea Ocean Literacy Network is being developed. Novel capacity-building activities such as the VBCC platform and BSYA Program are also unique to the project.

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