Abstract
Eutrophication is one of the most important anthropogenic pressures impacting coastal seas. In Europe, several legislations and management measures have been implemented to halt nutrient overloading in marine ecosystems. This study evaluates the impact of freshwater nutrient control measures on higher trophic levels (HTL) in European marine ecosystems following descriptors and criteria as defined by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). We used a novel pan-European marine modeling ensemble of fourteen HTL models, covering almost all the EU seas, under two nutrient management scenarios. Results from our projections suggest that the proposed nutrient reduction measures may not have a significant impact on the structure and function of European marine ecosystems. Among the assessed criteria, the spawning stock biomass of commercially important fish stocks and the biomass of small pelagic fishes would be the most impacted, albeit with values lower than 2.5%. For the other criteria/indicators, such as species diversity and trophic level indicators, the impact was lower. The Black Sea and the North-East Atlantic were the most negatively impacted regions, while the Baltic Sea was the only region showing signs of improvement. Coastal and shelf areas were more sensitive to environmental changes than large regional and sub-regional ecosystems that also include open seas. This is the first pan-European multi-model comparison study used to assess the impacts of land-based measures on marine and coastal European ecosystems through a set of selected ecological indicators. Since anthropogenic pressures are expanding apace in the marine environment and policy makers need to use rapid and effective policy measures for fast-changing environments, this modeling framework is an essential asset in supporting and guiding EU policy needs and decisions.
Highlights
Eutrophication is one of the most important anthropogenic pressures on coastal and estuarine waters (Cloern, 2001; Desmit et al, 2018), seriously threatening the functioning and structure of marine ecosystems (Diaz and Rosenberg, 2008; Nixon, 2009; Doney, 2010; Cai et al, 2011), due to an excessive amount of nutrients from agricultural run-off and sewage
In this study we explore the impact of nutrient management scenarios at the European Sea scale by running an ensemble of different HTL models, forced by an existing coupled hydrological and hydrodynamicbiogeochemical framework covering specific areas of European regional seas
At MSFD regional scale, the Spawning Stock Biomass [SSB] of commercial small pelagic fishes (D3C2) showed a slight decrease in all the areas, with the exception of the English Channel (Osmose; +0.7%), with average values ranging between −1.3 and −2.0% (Figure 2A)
Summary
Eutrophication is one of the most important anthropogenic pressures on coastal and estuarine waters (Cloern, 2001; Desmit et al, 2018), seriously threatening the functioning and structure of marine ecosystems (Diaz and Rosenberg, 2008; Nixon, 2009; Doney, 2010; Cai et al, 2011), due to an excessive amount of nutrients from agricultural run-off and sewage. Decades of experience and acquired knowledge resulted in a strong progress of ecological modeling, allowing e.g., to better simulate the different components of the marine environment and explore the ecological responses that might occur if alternative management scenarios were implemented (IPBES, 2016; Zandersen et al, 2019). Within this context, the scientific community has been working to build a robust and reliable “End to End Models” (E2EMs) framework, which simulate the main processes that influence the dynamics of marine ecosystems (Fulton, 2010). This framework includes different types of spatially temporally explicit models, as (1)
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