Opening the black box of coastal inshore waters in the NW Mediterranean Sea: environmental quality tools and assessment

Memoria de tesis doctoral presentada por Eva Flo Arcas para optar al grado de Doctora en Ciencias Marinas por la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) y la Universitat de Barcelona (UB), realizada bajo la dirección del Dr. Jordi Camp Sancho del Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC).-- 370 pages

[EN] Coastal inshore waters (CIW) are defined as the area of coastal waters between 0 and 200 m from the shoreline. They represent < 1% of coastal waters but are of high ecological, social, and economic importance. However, these waters have been scarcely studied, they are poorly understood. The time series database of the National Catalan Coastal Water Monitoring Program, ongoing since 1990, has allowed characterization of the CIW in the NW Mediterranean Sea. [...]

[CAT] Les aigües costaneres interiors (CIW) són aquelles localitzades entre 0 i 200 m del litoral. Representen només un <1% d’aquestes, però tenen una gran importància a nivell ecològic, social i econòmic. Tot i així, no hi ha gaires estudis de les CIW i per tant el coneixement sobre la seva estructura i funcionament és limitat. La base de dades de la sèrie temporal del Programa Nacional de Seguiment i Control de les Aigües Costaneres de Catalunya, que es realitza des del 1990, ha permès caracteritzar les CIW al NO del Mediterrani. [...]

Funding for this work comes from three agreements (CV) and two contracts (CT ) between the Catalan Water Agency (Agència Catalana de l’Aigua-ACA-Generalitat de Catalunya) and the Marine Science Institute (Institut de Ciències del Mar-ICM-CSIC): CV02000014, CV03000043, CV07000392, CTN0802809 and CNT10018371112. This research is a contribution to the GRADIENTS project (Estructura fina de los gradientes costeros a lo largo de la costa Mediterranea), funded by the Spanish National Program (CTM2012-39476-C02-02) and the DEVOTES project (Development of innovative tools for understanding marine biodiversity and assessing good environmental status), funded by the European Union’s Seventh Frame-work Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement number 308392

Peer Reviewed