Establishing a European Marine Research Area

A recently completed foresight pilot project for the marine sector in Malta showed that marine-related activities currently contribute around 14% of the total GDP with an important share of employment, attributable mainly to tourism and transportation services.

Speaking about the marine foresight project, its co-ordinator Dr Aldo Drago, director of the IOI - Malta Operational Centre at the University of Malta, commented that "in the foresight exercise, we were looking into the future to see how, through strategic planning and management, the marine sector could grow into a prime contributor to the local economy by 2020".

This marine foresight study was part of a now concluded EU-funded FP5 STRATA eFORESEE project, which was co-ordinated by the Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST) and which involved extensive open consultations with a wide group of local experts in the scientific and socio-economic fields. The results and recommendations will be published in a Vision Document later this year.

Coastal monitoring and marine ecosystem research, while being critical for the conservation and sustainable management of the marine milieu, can be seen as the basis to render the marine sector more competitive and improve its contribution to economic growth.

Monitoring of the state of health of the marine environment has been recognised as a priority area for Euro-Mediterranean co-operation and it can be seen as a major contributor towards the creation of a European Marine Research Area, which the European Union is striving to establish.

Such were the topics discussed earlier on in January at an international seminar on "Marine Research: Trends and Related Developments" organised in Malta by the IOI-Malta Operational Centre, University of Malta in collaboration with the MCST (www.mcst.org.mt).

The seminar flagged a number of pressing issues in the marine sector; most prominently the importance of monitoring the state of health of the coastal seas in support of decision-making and policy formulation. Dr Drago explained how operational oceanography can achieve this goal through sustained or continuous measurements of the coastal and nearshore areas, using tools such as satellite imagery and radar techniques combined with in-situ measurements from monitoring buoys and systematic sampling at selected sites.

Such monitoring systems contribute to the prevention and protection from irreversible impacts on the marine environment, and from hazards such as oil spills and chronic marine pollution - all factors that can have drastic effects on the natural marine environment as well as on economies like ours that are deeply tied to the sea, especially for tourism.

Moreover, marine monitoring systems serve to enhance marine services such as through the provision of information to fishermen, bulletins on sea state (such as on ocean currents, temperature fronts, waves, etc....what is usually coined as 'ocean weather'), serving also to improve search and rescue operations and safety at sea.

Historically, Malta has had a pivotal role in promoting the conservation and sustainable use of the sea and its resources. In the 1960s, the visionary work of Arvid Pardo, Malta's Ambassador to the United Nations, paved the way for the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the introduction of the common heritage of mankind principle for the sea and seabed resources. Today, Malta has the potential to play an active role in the establishment of a so-called Euro-Mediterranean Marine Research Area by developing an indigenous technological and human resource capacity in environmental monitoring.

Environmental monitoring in Malta

Our current understanding of the state of health of the local marine environment is largely based on information obtained from the State of the Environment Reports (1998, 2002) that are commissioned by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (www.mepa.org.mt).

MEPA is the competent authority for monitoring coastal habitats. It collects baseline water quality data as well as data on marine sediments and marine habitats and indicator species from various sites, such as marinas and fish farms in connection with monitoring projects which it undertakes to assess the impacts of development of the marine environment. The inputs from research carried out by the Biology Department of the University of Malta is also significant.

Dr Godwin Cassar, director-general of MEPA, speaking at the seminar, stressed the need for strategic agreement between agencies and research bodies to improve monitoring techniques and the quality of the data obtained to fulfil Malta's international obligations. According to Dr Cassar there is a good basis locally to set up a central repository system for environmental information, and MEPA is well placed to facilitate this on a local scene.

The Physical Oceanography Unit of the IOI-Malta Operational Centre led by Dr Drago undertakes research in coastal meteorology, hydrography and physical oceanography. An automated monitoring station, positioned within the Portomaso Marina at the Malta Hilton, collects data on underwater temperature and pressure as well as atmospheric pressure and sends them to a central processing unit which uploads them four times daily on the Website of the centre (www.capemalta.net/medgoos/pounit).

The IOI-Malta Operational Centre currently hosts the Secretariat for the MedGOOS, the Mediterranean component of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). MedGOOS was founded under the auspices of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission to work on the development of an operational ocean observing and forecasting system at a regional and coastal scale and build expertise in modelling and forecasting. Twenty leading marine institutes from 17 Mediterranean countries are currently members of MedGOOS.

The way forward

One important avenue that could be exploited in the future at a local level would be to invest in an S&T capacity for the development of technological applications related to water-based tourism and other marine-related activities, which could increase Malta's competitiveness in both European and Mediterranean markets; also one could invest in the development of high level expertise in ocean monitoring, which could give Malta a lead position in promoting joint regional technology projects, networking in operational oceanography in the Mediterranean and preparing to make the best of our IT base in generating new services and added-value products from marine observations.

The establishment of a National Marine Sciences Centre can be considered as an enabling asset towards providing the research backbone, structure and facilities needed to provide the scientific basis and capability for an integrated management of the coastal zone and of the marine space under national jurisdiction.

Such a centre would act as a focal co-ordinating entity for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge related to the sea, and for the scientific study of the marine environment with an aim of conserving life in the sea, forecasting of natural hazards, identifying resources and the means of managing them appropriately.

This would be an important step towards concretely putting science and technology at the service of marine policy formulation and furnishing the necessary tools to achieve the full integration of coastal and marine environmental protection requirements into the definition and implementation of all other sectoral policies towards the achievement of sustainable development.

For more information on the Marine Foresight Pilot Project and the activities of the IOI (International Oceanographic Institute)-Malta Operational Centre contact, contact Dr Aldo Drago, director of the centre, at ioi-moc@um.edu.mt. For more information on the eFORESEE project contact Sharon De Marco at MCST on: sharon.demarco@mcst.org.mt.

The presentations delivered during the seminar can be accessed on the Website of the IOI-Malta Operational Centre: www.capemalta.net/medgoos/meetings/malta/seminar/.