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”).
