Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MISSION ATLANTIC (Towards the Sustainable Development of the Atlantic Ocean: Mapping and Assessing the present and future status of Atlantic marine ecosystems under the influence of climate change and exploitation)
Reporting period: 2022-03-01 to 2023-08-31
The ambition in MISSION ATLANTIC is to advance the Operational Readiness Level (ORL) of the Integrated Ecosystem Assessment approach (IEA) in each case study area (CS) and at the whole Atlantic basin-scale providing: data, models, indicators and an engaged forum of stakeholders to present, discuss and validate project's results. The specific case study areas considered are: Norwegian Sea, Celtic Sea, Canary Current system, North Mid Atlantic Ridge, South Mid Atlantic Ridge, Benguela Current, South Brazilian Shelf.
MISSION ATLANTIC aims at supporting the “All Atlantic Ocean research alliance” and the implementation of the Galway and Belem statements. In 2017, the European Union, South Africa and Brazil and co-signed the Belém statement on Atlantic Research and Innovation Cooperation for the South and tropical Atlantic and Southern Ocean. Following the Galway Statement, which focuses on North-Atlantic cooperation, the Belém statement furthers the integrated approach to research and development across the whole Atlantic Ocean and its bordering countries.
In general, MISSION ATLANTIC has delivered against all the identified key performance indicators (KPIs) and in particular pursued a proactive role in promoting clustering with concurrent EU projects relevant to Atlantic ecosystem assessment.
MISSION ATLANTIC has advanced according to the planned tasks and activities including achievement of all planned deliverables. This is despite the significant impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic which among the other has forced to cancel all in presence meetings, including those with stakeholders. The pandemic has had significant impacts on sea going activities, which are indeed delayed in the project but with no major effects on the general workplan.
The scoping phase of the IEA has included a policy review that demonstrated that Atlantic policies are mostly sectoral without considering interactions between sectors or cumulative impacts across sectors on the marine ecosystems. The institutional setting of ocean management is highly fragmented and operate at various scales, challenging ecosystem based management development for achieving cross-sector and multiple ecosystem objectives and risks from cumulative impacts.
A first qualitative risk assessment was also delivered in each region and all CS identify fisheries as the sector with highest risk of impact. Other sectors with high risk of impact include shipping, agriculture, waste-water treatment, tourism/recreation, land-based industry, and coastal infrastructure. Maps of these pressures at the whole Atlantic scale have been also compiled and delivered in this reporting period. Data supporting IEA have been reviewed and collated into a new metadata catalogue available under the project's website. The existing and available data are identified from data sources covering large marine disciplines: atmosphere, biological oceanography, chemical oceanography, cross-discipline, environment, human activities, marine geology and physical oceanography.
Mobility and training programmes have been started in MISSION ATLANTIC and the project has delivered several open science tools and a first review of the skills and training needs required to increase capacity of performing integrated ecosystem assessment in the Atlantic Ocean. The learning objectives have been compiled and will provide the framework for future training activities in the project.
MISSION ATLANTIC has contributed to the All Atlantic forum initiatives and participated and co-organized a series of events on integrated ecosystem assessments and on science-policy interface. Within these collaborations MISSION ATLANTIC has delivered a framework for future Atlantic cooperation on seafloor mapping efforts and prioritisation of seabed targets for IEA.