The Joint Action on the European Marinas Network aims to explore the potential of marinas as essential infrastructure for ocean observation, marine science, and citizen involvement. The overarching goal is to establish an ecosystem consisting of many individual marinas and associated businesses running monitoring stations along the coastline, empowering marinas as hubs for ocean stewardship.
Within the European context, the approximately 10,000 inland and coastal marinas transcend their utilitarian role as mere embarkation points, assuming the status of vibrant socio-economic nodes. Functioning as focal points for boating enthusiasts, water sports aficionados, visitors, thriving marine enterprises, and, on occasion, local fishing fleets, marinas emerge as dynamic hubs with multi-faceted implications.
- Alberto Sonino, Venezia Certosa Marina, Italy
- Alexandra Pavlidou, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), Greece
- Eirini-Asimina Stamatopoulou, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
- Francesca Coccon, Italian Consortium for Managing Research Activities Venice Lagoon (CORILA), Italy
- Melanie Symes, TransEurope Marinas
- Natascha Oppelt, Kiel University, Germany
- Philip Easthill, European Boating Industry (EBI)
- Toste Tanhua, GEOMAR, Germany
The Knowledge Hub aims to enhance understanding of marine ecosystems and inform decision-making. It will focus on researching socio-environmental conditions within and around marinas in Europe using a data-driven approach by:
Establishing a network of selected marinas to participate in coordinated environmental monitoring and data collection efforts;
Developing guidelines for the marinas on using procured and standardised, low-cost sensor packages in marinas to measure oceanographic and environmental key parameters;
Enabling marinas to become focal points for harmonised data generation;
Providing a centralised repository for data collection.
The JPI Oceans Joint Action on the European Marinas Network aims to explore different avenues to capitalize on the value and potential of marinas as infrastructures for ocean observation, ocean research and citizen science. A key scientific aspect of the Joint Action lies in recording crucial real-time data in coastal regions. Through the establishment of a marina-based monitoring network, a wide range of oceanographic and meteorological parameters can be recorded, crucially improving data coverage in coastal areas. Parameters to prioritise can include water temperature, sea state, dissolved gases, phytoplankton, microplastics, and others, potentially in combination with meteorological or air quality parameters.
Establishing such a marina-based measurement network can contribute significantly to closing data gaps in the coastal area. In addition, this data can help fill the lack of satellite data coverage in coastal regions and provide groundproofing in this area. The data obtained can be used, for example, to generate information on water levels or marine heat waves. This is especially relevant considering coastal regions often have high tourist and population densities. It would, therefore, provide key information for the regulating authorities to ensure the safety of the coastal population. In addition, the data obtained can be used for the environmental management of marinas and coastal regions, e.g., to ventilate marinas in a timely manner if an oxygen minimum is threatening or, e.g., to take timely warnings and measures in the event of toxic algal blooms.