Beschreibung: Abstract Legal requirement in Europe asks for Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) in European seas, including considerations of trophic interactions and minimization of negative impacts of fishing on food webs and ecosystem functioning. Focusing on the interaction between fisheries and ecosystem components, the trophic model presented here shows for the first time the “big picture” of the western Baltic Sea (WBS) food web by quantifying structure and flows between all trophic elements and the impact of fisheries that were and are active in the area, based on best available recent data. Model results show that fishing pressures exerted on the WBS since the early nineties of the past century forces not only top predators such as harbour porpoises and seals but also cod and other demersal fish to heavily compete for fish as food and to cover their dietary needs by shifting to organisms lower in the trophic web, mainly to benthic macrofauna and / or search for suitable prey in adjacent ecosystems such as Kattegat, Skagerrak, central Baltic Sea and North Sea. While common sense implementations of EBFM have been proposed, such as fishing all stocks below Fmsy and reducing fishing pressure even further for forage fish such as herring and sprat, few studies compared such fishing to alternative scenarios. Different options for EBFM, with regards to recovery of depleted stocks and sustainable future catches, are presented here based on the WBS ecosystem model, the legal framework given by the new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) of the European Union. The model explores four legally valid future fishery scenarios: 1) business as usual, 2) maximum sustainable fishing (F = Fmsy), 3) half of Fmsy, and 4) EBFM with F = 0.5 Fmsy for forage fish and F = 0.8 Fmsy for other fish. In addition, a “No-fishing” scenario demonstrates, that neither individual stocks nor the whole system would collapse when all fishing activities from 2017 on would cease. Simulations show that “Business as usual” would perpetuate low 2016 catches from depleted stocks in an unstable ecosystem where endangered species may be lost. In contrast, an “EBFM” scenario - with herring and sprat fished at 0.5 Fmsy level and cod and other stocks fished at 0.8 Fmsy level - allows the recovery of all stocks with strongly increased catches close to the maximum (at Fmsy) for cod and flatfish and catches similar to the 2016 level for herring and sprat but with strongly reduced fishing effort. Model and methodology presented here are considered suitable to assess MSFD Criterion D4C2 in the WBS.

Beschreibung: Report on the current observing status in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre and the South Atlantic subtropical gyre, containing the results of the investigation on regional observing activities, systems, and connectivity in relation to climate and ecosystems

Beschreibung: Assessment of the observing system fitness for storm surge forecasting and warning in the Atlantic

Beschreibung: Prior to the 4th annual AtlantOS meeting in month 48 a project progress report for the external project boards (EB and ISTAB) will be prepared to enable them to be as good as possible prepared for the meeting and to ensure consequently that AtlantOS receives as constructive as possible recommendations from the boards. This report, together with the two external summary board meeting reports, which will be requested from the EB and ISTAB, will represent D11.7.

Beschreibung: This task will use outputs from the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) to develop a system for ship routing hazard mapping. Starting from knowledge of the environmental fields affecting vessel seakeeping, the system will estimate hazard and cost associated to known routes in the Atlantic Ocean. The system will employ model analysis or reanalysis of sea state (wave height, period, and direction), hydrodynamics (near surface ocean currents), and meteorological (wind) models. The system will produce an objective route hazard assessment, based on UNIBO experience in hazard mapping and probabilistic approaches. The investigated routes will be selected based on the most relevant ones, according to the AIS (Automatic Information System) density maps. In particular, the existing CMCC ship routing code (VISIR) will be first of all validated through inter-­comparison with analytical benchmarks and other published models. VISIR’s functionalities will then be extended for optimizing the operational costs (bunker) of large ocean-­going vessels sailing along routes compliant with IMO safety recommendations. The same approach will be extended to computation of vessel operational costs along the route. This information will build up a database, queried by the end-­user through a graphical interface for visualizing customized maps of route hazard and cost for user provided parameters [D8.10]. The fitness of AtlantOS for ship routing will be analyzed with a dedicated report [D8.14].

Beschreibung: Best practice document and review / inventory of current methods for sharing components of the Integrated Atlantic Ocean Observing System, such as ships, fixed and mobile observing systems, calibration facilities and support the use of the infrastructure for innovation testing, validation, or demonstration

Beschreibung: European policy intends to expand the space available to aquaculture by cultivating sites that are offshore. This presents challenges in terms of building structures, e.g., fish cages that withstand the effects of offshore weather conditions along the Atlantic coast. In order to establish possible future sites for offshore aquaculture production AtlantOS T8.5 gathered relevant wave, current velocity and water column structure measurements from the coasts of Ireland, Norway and Spain and used these data to validate site assessment models of the potential new offshore aquaculture sites. This deliverable report assesses the fitness for purpose of the generic aquaculture decision support tool developed.