Scenario simulations of the changing Black Sea ecosystem

ended

Marine modeling at JRC provides a tool to examine the present and future state of the marine ecosystem and can inform and support a variety of EU policies including the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The Black Sea has suffered from severe ecological changes since the 1970s due to concurent effects of intense eutrophication, overfishing, outburst of gelatinous carnivores and natural climatic variations. The main purpose of the project is therefore to implement an advanced ecosystem model for the complex Black Sea ecosystem based on the validated JRC hydrodynamic model to generate future scenario simulations considering different policy options and climate change scenarios. The data generated from these scenario simulations will be thoroughly analysed using state of the art statistical methods like singular spectrum analysis and breakpoint detection methods. The results of this work will be broadly disseminated not only to the scientific community but it will be ensured that various groups, public bodies and agencies (e.g. the Commission on the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution, etc.), outside of academia can and will utilise the knowledge produced.