Dear Collegues,
in the Workshop on “practical implementation of WFD in the transitional
waters in the Mediterranean Ecoregion”, which was held at the
Ferrara meeting, the following points were raised:
-
At the EU-level there is a need for the definition
of the typologies for the organisation of all groundwater, lotic and
lentic freshwater, transitional and coastal marine ecosystems, in
order to select the ecosystems for intercalibration;
-
The EU- Working Group (WG) on Transitional and Coastal
Waters already defined Typology for coastal waters, while Typology
for the Mediterranean transitional waters is not yet defined;
-
A preliminary division into deltas/estuaries and
lagoons/coastal lakes was proposed but there is a need to evaluate
if the grouping of all Mediterranean lagoons into a single Typology
is coherent with the WFD aims or if a subdivision is required, and
in this case which one.
-
Gianna Casazza, which is the reference person in
the Coastal and Transitional Waters WG, encouraged us to organize
an international sub-group with the objective to propose to the WG
a Typology of Mediterranean lagoons, which is coherent with the WFD
aims;
-
The definition of Typology of Mediterranean lagoons
was considered an interesting objective for the LaguNet Network;
-
Typology can be defined both a priory, comparing
our experience and expertise in order to reach a common expert view
definition, and a posteriori through collection of available
data in the view of selecting a minimum set of abiotic lagoon features,
which could minimise the variance of the WFD quality element descriptors.
Point 6 represent our operative objective. To this aim, at the Ferrara
meeting we decided to coordinate the expertises of the LaguNet Network
and of other Mediterranean research groups in the attempt to reach an
a posteriori definition of Typology of Mediterranean lagoons.
The proposed approach was an application of niche theory (or niche science),
based on the following stages.
-
definition of a set of structural abiotic features
as major environmental niche axes for transitional Mediterranean waters,
as a result of the views of the expert groups;
-
identification of a set of Mediterranean lagoons
for which data on these structural features are available;
-
collection of data on structural features and identification
of the available data set on the quality elements considered in the
WFD;
-
collection of the available data for the quality
element descriptors of selected biological quality elements (as those
for which more information area available);
-
LaguNet meeting (also as e-conference) to discuss
the statistical tools which can be used to investigate environmental
niche dimensions explaining the variability of quality element descriptors;
-
organisation of working groups for the analysis of
the collected data-base, with the following objectives:
-
a. to propose an a priori derived Typology,
based on an expert view comparison;
-
b. to propose an a posteriori derived
Typology, derived from the environmental niche analysis;
-
c. to compare the a priori and a
posteriori Typologies.
To accomplish these stages we are publishing a WebSite on TW Typology
(http://www.ecologia.ricerca.unile.it/TWTypology,
temporary available as http://193.204.79.48); the website is organised
in a open, free shared area and in a protected area for each working
group that will participate to this project. Each group interested in
the participation to this Working Group on Typology of Mediterranean
lagoons can send an e-mail to the following addresses alberto.basset@unile.it;
letizia.sabetta@unile.it
to ask the username and password for its own protected page. On the
protected page, a table with major structural abiotic features of lagoon
ecosystems and a table with the quality elements descriptors will be
included.
Each group, following the instructions on the web page, is required
(a) to order the structural features according to their relevance for
the definition of Typology, (b) to fill in a table for each lagoon on
which data are available, (c) to indicate which data on quality elements
and quality element descriptors are available on those ecosystems.
The name of the group and the indication of the ecosystems on which
data were available are going to be reported in two separate lists on
the open, free shared, page. The data inserted will not be available
to other participants; each contributor when entering his personal page
will find only the information he inserted and updated.
As for our first LaguNet activity, the LOICZ budget definition for the
Italian lagoons, we are planning to find finalise these activities into
a number of common publications with the contribution of each participant.
There are two potential forums for these activities: the publication
of an Instant Book on Mediterranean lagoons, reporting synthetic contributions
describing the available knowledge on each of the lagoons registered
into our data base and the publication of a common paper on the application
of “niche theory” to practical implementation of Typology
of the Mediterranean lagoons. We are investigating the interest of some
of the most relevant publishers and editors to the potential end-products
of these activities. We will update information of this topic directly
on the website.
As an editorial group of this activity we will encourage you to send
us your suggestion to improve this proposal, to communicate your contribution
sending us a request of username and password, to ask us any additional
information you will find useful.
Yours Sincerely,
Alberto Basset
Jose-Manuel Zaldivar Comenges
Nicholas Murray
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