PhD INTEGRATING CUMULATIVE IMPACT ASSESSMENTS IN MARINE NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT (M/F)

The ocean is essential to human societies. Once seen so vast, the exploitation and historical undermanagement followed by human activities at sea (e.g. fishing, shipping, off shore exploitation and exploration) and in adjacent coastal and terrestrial ecosystems (e.g. agriculture, construction, tourism, land use change) is causing the prevalence of a number of pressures which impact ocean health at various levels negatively affecting human wellbeing (Halpern et al. 2008; Korpinen et al. 2021; United Nations 2021b, 2021a).
The associated pressures of human activities converge over diverse scales generating synergies and cumulative impacts that affect ecosystem services (Halpern, 2019). Comprehending these interactions is crucial for the creation of marine governance strategies (Elliot, 2020). In addition, with climate change it is possible that pressures increase their consequences (IPCC, 2019) making it important to develop tools that can predict the intensity of future impact scenarios that inform management and pressure mitigation strategies.
In response to the environmental and ocean degradation, the European Commission established various plans and deals (e.g. Biodiversity strategy 2030, within the Green Deal) aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals agenda to try and minimize impacts of human activities at sea (Nash et al. 2020; European Commission 2020) to ensure a sustainable use of marine resources. These activities are intended to be regulated with the establishment of the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive (MSPD).
The GES4SEAS project aims at developing a toolbox that assesses and predicts (also in the context of climate change) effects of multiple stressors and pressures from human activities to guide marine governance processes with the goal of minimizing human pressures and their impacts on coastal and marine biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, while maintaining the sustainable delivery of ecosystem services. The toolbox will be validated and applied within the context of ecosystem-based management (EBM) (Figure 1). The toolbox is intended for authorities and stakeholders to aid the management of marine systems at a national, sub-regional, regional, and European scale.

The toolbox intends to be validated and applied in multiple Learning Sites (LS) to ensure its applicability and flexibility across multiple scales and contexts. The tool will be mainly designed within scenarios and marine management systems that regard developed nations. This thesis will concentrate its questions in the applicability of a tool that assesses and predicts integrated impacts of cumulative pressures, but in the context of developing countries.

Mission :

To apply a toolbox that assesses and predicts integrated impacts of cumulative pressures at a spatial and temporal scale, different sets of input data are needed.
Considering that developing countries have a lower resolution data, fewer sites monitored, and poor site representation. We address the following questions:
• How does the environmental, socio-economic, and political context of a developing nation influence the effective application of the GES4SEAS toolbox?
• How to adapt a toolbox that is designed for data rich sites to give a good assessment of human pressure in the context of a developing nation with poor data availability?
• How can the toolbox be flexible, easy to use to be used by various stakeholders of different levels of instruction successfully?

Activités :

Define the main drivers in various social-ecological contexts affecting the effective application of the GES4SEAS toolbox.

Evaluate the environmental, political, and socio-economic potential of application of a European Environmental Status Assessment Tool (Cumulative Impact Assessment) in foreign study sites.

Identify gaps that need to be filled when adapting an environmental assessment tool within developing economies.

Compétences et savoir-faire :

Master's in environmental sciences
Proven skills in conducting cumulative impact assessment studies
Proficiency with R
Knowledge of the social-ecological context of the Caribbean
Knowledge of the European Good Environmental Status
Knowledge of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive
Very good level in written and spoken English
Knowledge of Spanish is a plus
Ability to work with a large team of researchers