Thirty-seven interventions, 400 million euros and a time limit of just two years to complete all the work. Some of the most important projects on the Sea have started in recent weeks (Restoration of marine ecosystems), the plan which contains ambitious initiatives for the restoration and protection of marine habitats. “It’s a huge opportunity, in some ways irreplaceable,” says one Open Giordano Giorgi, project coordinator and director of the National Coastal Center of Ispra, the organization which, together with the Ministry of the Environment, is monitoring the various files on the table more closely. Among the activities beginning these days is the first mapping of the entire Italian coast, which will provide for the first time a detailed and up-to-date photograph of the health of marine ecosystems and beyond.
The first cartography of the Italian coast
The consortium led by the Fugro company won the tender for the mapping activities, whose operations will begin in the coming weeks and will be completed, according to forecasts, in approximately two years. “It is an impressive operation, which is being carried out for the first time in Italy. No other country at European level has mapped the coastline with these levels of precision”, specifies Giordano Giorgi. The process launched by Ispra will be able to count on the most advanced technologies among those available today on the market and will allow, end of the project, to create the first digital Atlas of the Italian seas. The activities will be carried out throughout the national coastal territory thanks to optical sensors, satellite sensors as well as an autonomous underwater vehicle which will be used for observation direct access to approximately 4 thousand kilometers of coastline.
Coastal erosion and offshore wind farms
The cartography will restore a detailed photograph of the morphology of the Italian coasts, allowing – for example – to precisely plan interventions by the government or local authorities. “Coastal erosion phenomena begin in the submerged part of the beach. With the data we will have, we will be able to predict the erosion phenomena that will affect the Italian coast in the next ten years”, explains the Ispra researcher. Another advantage is linked to the installation of offshore wind farms. To ensure that the electricity produced by wind turbines reaches the continent, it is necessary to lay long electrical cables. By mapping coastal areas, builders will be able to know precisely which mooring points are the most practical (and least expensive). impacting) to pass the cables.
Discovering the seabed
The Ispra project will venture for the first time into areas of the Mediterranean that are almost completely unknown and until now never monitored. A generally common situation, considering that to date, just over a quarter of the Earth's seabed and ocean floor have been mapped. “It’s true, we know the Moon better than our seabed,” explains Giordano Giorgi. Now that it can count on Pnrr funds, Italy also intends to make its contribution to fill this deficit. Particularly with the mapping of more than 70 mountains present on the Italian coasts and for which very little information is available. “Even in this case, these are figures to which we are absolutely not accustomed,” specifies the ISPRA researcher. In fact, over the past 20 years, the Institute has only mapped three seamounts. And now, thanks to the Mer project, he is preparing to study 72 of them in just over two years.
On restoring nature
In addition to exploration activities, there are restoration activities. The first that Ispra is working on involves reconstructing beds of European flat oysters – a species native to the Adriatic Sea – in five Italian regions: Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Marche and Abruzzo. According to estimates from major international organizations, around 85% of the planet's natural oyster reefs have disappeared. The second restoration project concerns Posidonia oceanica, an aquatic plant considered fundamental to climate change mitigation. “Posidonia meadows are the basis of CO2 capture and oxygen production, but the last mapping dates back several decades. To make a comparison with the land surface, it's as if we don't know how many forests there are in Italy today,” observes Giorgi. The theme of ecosystem restoration has also become a subject of debate in recent years. weeks, thanks to the approval of the Nature Restoration Act, the EU provision – approved by the European Parliament and therefore close to adoption – which plans to restore at least 90% of degraded marine and terrestrial areas by 2050. “We have been very far-sighted,” says Giorgi about the two ongoing restoration projects ISPRA is working on. “With these initiatives – he added – we are moving forward in the work that the European Union will ask us to do”.
Moorings and “ghost nets”
To complete the Sea decor, there are many other projects, partly already underway and partly planned. An example? Tenders for the construction of mooring fields, which will prevent damage to the seabed caused by the anchoring of ships in certain marine protected areas. Or the project to remove what we call ghost nets, the “ghost nets” abandoned at sea by fishermen. Data from Ispra shows that 86.5% of marine litter is linked in one way or another to fishing activities and 94% is represented by abandoned nets.
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