JRC, the European Commission’s join research service, has recently extended its Marine Modelling Toolbox to cover the Black Sea, under the EU’s SIMSEA (Scenario simulations of the changing Black Sea ecosystem) project. The advanced model can be used to generate baseline and first scenario simulations, considering different policy options and climate change scenarios.
The Black Sea has suffered from severe ecological changes since the 1970s due to intense eutrophication (associated with excessive anthropogenic nutrient load and pollutants), trophic cascades (as a result of overfishing and invasive non-indigenous gelatinous carnivores) and natural climatic variations.
In particular, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) obligates all EU Member States to take the necessary measures to maintain or progressively achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) in the marine environment by the year 2020. The development of a modelling toolbox was initiated in order to assist Member States in the implementation of the MSFD.
Further details may be found in the official report:
