Since 27 August 2024, the State Institution ‘IMB NAS of Ukraine’ has been participating in the European Union (INTERREG VI-B) NEXT Black Sea Basin Programme under Grant Agreement BSB00020 on the topic of ‘Carbon Binding Blue Black Sea’ – BlueC.

The main goal of the project is to preserve marine vegetation and macrophytes, which occupy less than 0.5% of the ocean floor but account for more than 50% of carbon accumulation in ocean sediments. GIS technologies, remote sensing, modelling and mapping will be used to carry out the project tasks. The project activities are aimed at creating a database, a public awareness programme and the development of management tools. The project also integrates an environmental education programme and the Marine Litter Monitoring application for monitoring and reporting in order to raise awareness among the general public.

As a result of the 30-month BlueC project, guidelines will be prepared for a new assessment of the impact on marine vegetation and macrophytes, including the introduction of laws and the strengthening of existing regulations for the protection of marine ecosystems.

Carbon Binding Blue Black Sea (BlueC) Project supported by (Interreg VI-B) NEXT Black Sea Basin Programme of the European Union with reference no. BSB00020 has been signed with a consotium comprising Tekidağ Namık Kemal University from Türkiye as Lead Partner, NGO “BOURGAS REGIONAL TOURISM ASSOCIATION” from Bulgaria as Project Partner 2, Ecological Counseling Center Cahul from Moldova as Project Partner 3 and Institute of Marine Biology of the NAS of Ukraine from Ukraine as Project Partner 3.

This 30-month-long BlueC project aims at enabling macrophytes and the marine vegetation formations to be preserved by suitable management tools, which will ensure that these formations are protected, their degradation are prevented, and they are allowed to be maintained in a satisfactory state of conservation. These management tools will include GIS integration and remote sensing technologies will be utilized in all modelling and mapping activities.

Main activities of the action will include; — integrated database creation, congresses/workshops organisation and implementation of a Community-based Blue Carbon Awareness Programme (ComBlueC) consisted of an offline Blue Carbon Capacity Building Programme (BCCap) and an online Blue Carbon Education Programme (BCEP), and — ecosystem-based impact assessment guidelines development, seagrass meadows mapping, marine litter monitoring and simulation modelling.

Target groups of the action will be primary and secondary school students and their teachers, local authorities and governments and local communities, i.e. local fishermen and private sector developers, and academia.

As a consequence, a guideline will be prepared for a new impact assessment procedure incorporating introduction of laws and strengthening of existing regulations, particularly as regards impact studies to protect species permitting the meadow habitats to be protected. This will take place through support of technologies, such as GIS and remote sensing for mapping, marine litter monitoring, ecosystem modelling for understanding complex systems at spatiotemporal scales needed to conserve, manage, and restore ecosystem services (ESs).

Furthermore, the ComBlueC will facilitate more effective communication of scientific knowledge about seagrasses comprising, (a) the BCEP for the public, to be able to express an opinion, and (b) the BCCap for the administrative structures responsible for authorizing all or part of any potential development project to put it into effect or append its conditions.

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On 27 June 2024, the State Institution ‘IMB NAS of Ukraine’ became a participant in the European Union’s Interreg Next programme under Grant Agreement BSB00174 on ‘Invasive Alien Species Observatory and Network Development for the Assessment of Climate Change Impacts and Contextual Ecosystem Services Evaluation in Black Sea Deltaic Protected Areas’ (IASON+).

The project brings together research on invasive species in delta ecosystems by scientists from five countries: Romania (Danube Delta National Institute for Research and Development and Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve Authority), Greece (Democritus University of Thrace – Special Account for Research Funds), Turkey (Karadeniz Technical University), Georgia (N (N)LE International Business and Economic Development Centre) and Ukraine (State Institution ‘IMB NAS of Ukraine’).

The overall objective of the project is to continue organising and conducting joint activities to monitor invasive alien species, assessing their impact on specific ecosystem services in the Black Sea delta ecosystems of five countries (Romania, Ukraine, Greece, Turkey and Georgia) and assessing their resilience to current and projected climate conditions, creating and promoting the preconditions for adaptation to climate change.

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Since 2023, the State Institution ‘IMB NAS of Ukraine’ has been implementing tasks under the European Union’s international project HORIZON-CL6-2022-BIODIV-01 under Grant Agreement 101082004 on the topic “DiverSea – Integrated Observation, Mapping Monitoring and Prediction for Functional BioDiversity of Coastal SEAs” (DiverSea) – Integrated observation, cartographic monitoring and prediction of functional biodiversity of coastal seas.

The overall goal of the project is to meet critical knowledge needs for specific disciplines while creating an integrative architecture that allows for the consolidation and analysis of diverse data streams from robotic, autonomous and remote sensing technologies, as well as new and traditional methods of marine biodiversity monitoring. The plan is to create a long-term analytical structure for ocean observation, monitoring, mapping and prediction (OMoMaP) to analyse marine biodiversity and its links to EGS in European coastal seas. This architecture will facilitate the development of new coordinated policy action plans at national, regional, European and international levels and will be integrated with existing global observation systems.

The project brings together scientists from 19 institutions.