Predictive tool of seagrass health to optimize the design of low crested structures in the Mediterranean Sea

Coastal erosion is one of the major global threats to people, the economy, cultural assets and ecosystems in many regions of the world and also in Europe.

Valuable coastal ecosystems, such as seagrass meadows, are particularly threatened by these erosion problems and effective protection measures for their conservation are urgently needed.

Low-crested structures (LCS) are the typical coastal defence in Europe, with a design mainly based on their hydrodynamic and morphodynamic behaviour and little attention is usually paid to the ecological consequences of their construction.

The construction of breakwaters can affect seagrasses by altering the circulation and sediment transport to the adjacent habitat, but fragmented and scientific-based criteria are difficult to manage in present engineering design and therefore ecological impacts are often not taken into account.

Within this research project, the creation of a new quantitative prediction tool will be investigated to allow civil engineers and decision-makers to optimize the design of breakwaters and reduce the uncertainty related to their environmental performance, contributing to the preservation and conservation of seagrasses during the lifetime of breakwaters.

In particular, the project will focus on the Mediterranean Sea to ensure the persistence of two characteristics seagrass species, Cymodocea nodosa and the most important endemic and slow-recovery Posidonia oceanica.

The fellowship will be carried out at the Universitat Politécnica de Valencia (UPV), in Spain, under the supervision of Professor Josep R. Medina, international expert in maritime and coastal engineering, in collaboration with Dr.

Nuria Marbà, internationally renowned researcher on marine and seagrass ecology at the Instituto Mediterráneo de Estudios Avanzados (IMEDEA).

A placement is planned at the engineering consultancy INGEOMAR to put into practice and refine the predictive model, boosting its integration in coastal protection proyects.