Periodic Reporting for period 2 - B-USEFUL (User-oriented Solutions for Improved Monitoring and Management of Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in vulnerable European Seas)
Reporting period: 2024-04-01 to 2025-09-30
We are currently experiencing a rapid and accelerating decline of marine biodiversity worldwide that threatens not only unique habitats and biota, but key ecosystem functions and services essential for human well-being (e.g. food provisioning and climate regulation). Tackling the current biodiversity crisis requires well-informed science advice and operational decision-support tools allowing end-users to evaluate the effectiveness of conservation actions for biodiversity protection, notably with regards to marine protected areas (MPAs). This in order to protect “hotspots” of biodiversity, while ensuring their capacity to provide services vital to society and other human uses of ocean space. B-USEFUL will contribute to achieve the ambitious policy goals set out by the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 by developing user-oriented tools and solutions to protect marine biodiversity, effectively building upon existing European data infrastructures and governance frameworks. To that end, B-USEFUL will provide evidence-based guidance for ecosystem-based management and marine spatial planning (MSP) to ensure a sustainable use of European marine resources.
To achieve this overall goal B-USEFUL will pursue the following objectives:
1. Identify key end-user needs to support decision-making for marine spatial planning and biodiversity protection
2. Co-develop a set of operational indicators, targets and “what-if” scenarios
3. Compile and standardize available data on marine species and habitats across areas and organism groups,
4. Advance our understanding of the adverse cumulative impacts of climate change and anthropogenic pressures on marine biodiversity
5. Quantify the risk, vulnerability and resilience of species, communities and habitats to human impacts
6. Develop and apply new model infrastructure to better characterize and forecast changes in marine biodiversity
7. Co-develop interactive, user-oriented tools and solutions for decision-making fitting the needs of marine spatial planning
To ensure project outcomes with high operational readiness, B-USEFUL will go beyond the present state-of-the-art by advancing a number of key components and infrastructure as follows:
i) set up interactive end-user forums ensuring the identification of end-user needs and co-development of project outcomes
ii) maximize the uptake and harmonization of available European data infrastructure for monitoring and assessing marine biodiversity.
iii) create a step change in our ability to assess and understand cumulative impacts and risks acting on marine biodiversity.
iv) provide new model infrastructure and capacity to make projections of future biodiversity and ecosystem services.
v) co-develop a user-oriented decision-support tool hosted within an existing infrastructure for science advice and ocean governance.
B-USEFUL will employ three complementary pathways to generate and ensure a broad range of impacts towards fulfilling the ambitious vision of the EU Green Deal and the EU Biodiversity Strategy. These pathways are range from higher level impacts targeting policy on biodiversity and ecosystem services (Pathway 1: “Science to policy”), to tailored impacts on decision-making through direct involvement of end-users (Pathway 2: “Science for decision-making"), as well as lower level (but equally important) impacts serving to raise awareness and transfer of knowledge among scientists, managers and the general public on the causes and consequences of biodiversity loss (Pathway 3: “Science for Training”).
To achieve this overall goal B-USEFUL will pursue the following objectives:
1. Identify key end-user needs to support decision-making for marine spatial planning and biodiversity protection
2. Co-develop a set of operational indicators, targets and “what-if” scenarios
3. Compile and standardize available data on marine species and habitats across areas and organism groups,
4. Advance our understanding of the adverse cumulative impacts of climate change and anthropogenic pressures on marine biodiversity
5. Quantify the risk, vulnerability and resilience of species, communities and habitats to human impacts
6. Develop and apply new model infrastructure to better characterize and forecast changes in marine biodiversity
7. Co-develop interactive, user-oriented tools and solutions for decision-making fitting the needs of marine spatial planning
To ensure project outcomes with high operational readiness, B-USEFUL will go beyond the present state-of-the-art by advancing a number of key components and infrastructure as follows:
i) set up interactive end-user forums ensuring the identification of end-user needs and co-development of project outcomes
ii) maximize the uptake and harmonization of available European data infrastructure for monitoring and assessing marine biodiversity.
iii) create a step change in our ability to assess and understand cumulative impacts and risks acting on marine biodiversity.
iv) provide new model infrastructure and capacity to make projections of future biodiversity and ecosystem services.
v) co-develop a user-oriented decision-support tool hosted within an existing infrastructure for science advice and ocean governance.
B-USEFUL will employ three complementary pathways to generate and ensure a broad range of impacts towards fulfilling the ambitious vision of the EU Green Deal and the EU Biodiversity Strategy. These pathways are range from higher level impacts targeting policy on biodiversity and ecosystem services (Pathway 1: “Science to policy”), to tailored impacts on decision-making through direct involvement of end-users (Pathway 2: “Science for decision-making"), as well as lower level (but equally important) impacts serving to raise awareness and transfer of knowledge among scientists, managers and the general public on the causes and consequences of biodiversity loss (Pathway 3: “Science for Training”).
The primary developments and achievements beyond state-of-the-art undertaken during RP2 has been: (i) finalizing the compilation and standardization of monitoring data of marine biodiversity that maximize uptake and harmonization of available European data infrastructure and ensures fit for uptake data products within (i.e. to WP3-4) and beyond the project (WP2); (ii) the successful setup and validation of novel joint-species distribution model infrastructure providing a large-scale assessment of patterns and trends of multiple Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) across multiple regions and organism groups (WP3) (iii) the development and application of sensitivity scores and risk assessments acting on marine biodiversity at both the species and community level (WP4), (iv) the identification and development of key scenarios together with end-users (WP1), as well as the setup a model pipeline for management strategy evaluation fit for MSP, especially with regards to MPA prioritization under the 30 by 30 target. In addition to these achievements, we are further developing our outreach capacity (including website and social media), as well as decided on the key architectural features of the user-oriented decision-support tool (DST) to be approved and finalized towards the end of the project. Finally, B-USEFUL staff are directly engaged in several international, European and national initiatives to discuss and increase visibility, cooperation and uptake of science into policy and decision-making, notably the organization of a joint clustering event in Brussels (March 2025) and the subsequent development of a knowledge exchange network linking KCBD and policy makers to a broad range of biodiversity related projects across multiple funding bodies (i.e. Horizon Europe, Biodiversa+ and ESA grants).
With the current progress of the project we are set towards developing novel decision-support tools (DST) informing end-users and practitioners involved in biodiversity conservation and marine spatial planning, particularly with regards to the placement of marine protected areas (MPAs) and their potential trade-offs with other ocean users (such as off-shore energy and fishing). The uptake and use of this framework will be greatly facilitated by having end-users co-developing and co-designing the DST, as well as hosting the tool at ICES serving as a platform for ecosystem-based advice in the Europe. More progress on this will be reported underway.