Friday September 11, 2026
ECO —
Marine ecosystems are simultaneously exposed to the cumulative effects of climate change, pollution, fisheries, maritime transport, coastal development, and invasive alien species. Yet these pressures have traditionally been studied in isolation, making it difficult to understand their combined impacts on biodiversity.
After four years of work, the European project GES4SEAS has completed the development and validation of a new generation of scientific and operational tools capable of analyzing these pressures in an integrated way. The project’s results, presented in August at the Estuarine and Coastal Sciences Association’s ECSA 61 conference, held in Brussels and co-organized by GES4SEAS, provide public authorities, regional bodies, the scientific community, and marine management organizations with new capabilities to anticipate risks and support decision-making based on the best available scientific evidence.
Funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe program and coordinated by the technology center AZTI, GES4SEAS was launched to bring Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) into the day-to-day practice of marine governance. This approach considers biodiversity, human activities, and the benefits that healthy marine ecosystems provide to society as interconnected components, rather than addressing each issue independently.