Marine and coastal ecosystems, such as seagrasses, mangroves, and coral reefs, provide a range of essential provisioning, regulating and cultural ecosystem services. Recent United Nations guidelines on ecosystem accounting (SEEA EA) emphasise the need for biophysical data as the foundation for compiling ecosystem accounts and conducting economic evaluations for developing indicators and informing policies and interventions. Ho...

Butterflies and plant species are widely used as model systems in biodiversity and conservation research. However, little is known about spatial patterns of butterfly diversity linked to plant communities across coastal dune ecotones. We explored the relation between butterfly and vegetation diversity in a Mediterranean protected dune system in Central Italy. We sampled butterfly and plant communities on shifting and fixed dun...

The Mediterranean Sea is a prominent climate-change hot spot, with many socioeconomically vital coastal areas being the most vulnerable targets for maritime safety, diverse met-ocean hazards and marine pollution. Providing an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution at wide coastal areas, high-frequency radars (HFRs) have been steadily gaining recognition as an effective land-based remote sensing technology for continuous...

Due to the semi-enclosed nature of the Mediterranean Sea, natural disasters and anthropogenic activities impose stronger pressures on its coastal ecosystems than in any other sea of the world. With the aim of responding adequately to science priorities and societal challenges, littoral waters must be effectively monitored with high-frequency radar (HFR) systems. This land-based remote sensing technology can provide, in near-re...

A native nested configuration of the ROMS model is implemented on the marine area between the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian basins, which includes the Tuscany Archipelago. Initial and boundary conditions are provided by the CMEMS Mediterranean Sea Physical Reanalysis product (1/16°), feeding the parent ROMS model (BLUE, 1/72°), in which a high-resolution grid is nested (PURPLE, 1/216°). Atmospheric forcing comes from a downscaled ve...

The use of multidisciplinary investigations for the evaluation of aquatic ecosystems status is recommended by the European Directives, but it is still a challenging practice. In this study, we apply a quantitative weight of evidence (WOE) approach (Sediqualsoft) for the integration of extensive data obtained from different typologies of investigations, obtained over a 4-year monitoring study of dredging activities in the harbo...