LAGOONS

The environmental issue of concern of the LAGOONS project is the anthropogenic deterioration and climate change impacts – especially the effects of extreme weather events- on surface water and lagoons ecosystems.

The main objective of the project is to contribute to a science-based seamless strategy – in an integrated and coordinated fashion – of the management of lagoons seen under the land-sea and science-policy-stakeholder interface; i.e., the project seek to underpin the integration of the EU Water Framework Directive, Habitat Directive, the EU’s ICZM Recommendation, and the EU Marine Strategy Directive.

Four case study lagoons have been selected to represent a set of “hotspot” coastal lagoons with a wide and balanced geographical distribution and different characteristics. The lagoons included are: Vistula Lagoon in Baltic Sea (transboundary Poland/Russia); Tylygulskyi Lagoon in Black Sea (Ukraine); Ria de Aveiro Lagoon in Atlantic Ocean (Portugal), and Mar Menor in the Mediterranean Sea (Spain). By means of elaborating integrated strategies for sustainable development of the case study lagoons in the climate change context, the LAGOONS project will contribute to the goals of the Call showing that it is possible to enhance connectivity between research and policy-making in a lagoons context using a proactive approach to water issues, which assures more efficient use of existing research results.

In management terms, LAGOONS will contribute to the decision-support methodologies for a coordinated approach to the Water Framework Directive and the Marine Strategy Directive. In addition, LAGOONS will propose actions to tackle bottlenecks in the context of climate change, i.e., LAGOONS will propose actions foreseen in the goals of the Europe 2020 strategy – A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

The LAGOONS project achieved the Scientific & Technological target objectives, by: i) creating a GIS knowledge base platform for the selected case study (CS) lagoons available for the project participants and for the external stakeholders; ii) doing an analysis of laws, policies and institutions and effectively engaged stakeholders during the entire project, ensuring a clear science-policy-stakeholder interface; iii) coupling catchment to coast modelling we increased the understanding of land-sea processes; iv) applying the same methodology to the four selected case-studies, enabling to scale up the results and dissemination to different audiences (Academics, Policy makers, stakeholders, including the citizens); v) developing science-based strategies and a decision support framework for the integrated management of costal lagoons in the context of climate change.