Progress in Oceanography of the Mediterranean Sea

Rome, 17-19 November 1997

Programme Summary

The Mediterranean Targeted Project

Background Information and Results

The Mediterranean Targeted Project (MTP) was established in 1993 by the European Commission under the MAST Programme and had an overall budget of ECU 11 million. The Commission proposed combining 10 different projects (see attachment), involving 70 institutions from 14 countries, into one overall project (MTP-I) so that research efforts in the Mediterranean Sea could be better coordinated, leading to the creation of a European community of scientists involved in Mediterranean research. The project was coordinated by a Steering Committee led by MAST. At that time, most of the scientists involved did not know each other well and normally performed research in small groups and in specific disciplines focused on the marine regions close to their home country.

During its pilot phase i.e. the period 1993-1996, MTP produced important scientific results, including:

The temperature of deep waters in the Western Mediterranean has increased by 0.13°C over the last 40 years (3.2 10-3 °C/yr). Warming was observed together with increasing salinity. These trends allowed calculations of the probable changes that occurred in water and heat budgets across the sea-surface. The reading of paleao-archives represented by western Mediterranean sediments revealed drastic changes in past oceanographic conditions. For example, sea surface temperatures fluctuated, over the last 15,000 years, by as much as 9 °C (0.6 10-3 °C/yr). The main differences between these two sets of observations is the time scale. The increase in temperature which has just been observed took place over a very brief period of time, whereas past climatic changes typically occurred over periods of several thousand years.

Evidence for climatic changes were also detected in the deep water masses of the Eastern Mediterranean basin. These changes are an increase in temperature of the deep layers during the last 3-4 decades and an increase in salinity of the intermediate waters (LIW) with a corresponding increase in their density. They could have a profound influence on the functioning of the ecosystem over the next few decades.

Increases in nutrient discharges (phosphate and nitrate) were documented from deep water measurements. They result from increasing population and industrial and agricultural activities around the sea, mostly during the early sixties. As a result these increases led to accelerated eutrophication (presence of algae, cloudy waters) in some hot spots (impact on tourist activities).

Lead concentrations in surface waters halved in the early 1990s following the application of European regulations on lead additives in gasoline. This result shows that the marine system responds quickly to the changes of lead emissions on land.

The above changes strengthen the interest of the Mediterranean Sea as a natural full-scale system for the monitoring of environmental and climatic evolution in general and in the Mediterranean region in particular. Structure and functioning of the Mediterranean ecosystem The structure and functioning of the overall Mediterranean Sea ecosystem were shown to be variable at seasonal and interannual time scales. Seasonal changes of atmospheric inputs to the marine environment could be detected at water depths of 1,000 meters.

MTP produced very advanced models of Mediterranean circulation from the global scale down to the coastal area.

MTP contributed to understanding and evaluating the capability of the Mediterranean to absorb input material such as contaminants and their impact on its trophic state by estimating mass balances and exchange rates across its borders, and understanding the functioning of its euphotic zone. Small-scale trials were conducted for example in a semi-enclosed basin such as the Adriatic Sea.

Nutrient discharges from the Po River to the Adriatic sea were evaluated. The river's annual fluctuation in nutrient discharges to the shelf has been shown to be an important control of primary productivity and biomass in the Adriatic sea.

MTP results strongly support the hypothesis of phosphorus limitation for phytoplankton growth in the northwestern Mediterranean sea.

On a very broad scale, it was found that organic matter mineralization increases from oligotrophic to mesotrophic areas, leading to an increase in the release of CO2.

During the MTP pilot phase an important research effort was carried out in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea in order to fill some basic gaps in our knowledge of this region. Acquisition of reliable primary and microbial production estimates was achieved on a seasonal basis, for the first time, in the open waters of the Aegean Sea.

The southern Aegean Sea is one of the most oligotrophic regions of the world, as was reflected by biogeochemical studies, most of which were performed for the first time in the region. However, important changes were observed in the waters of the region such as nutrient enrichment in conjunction with the onslope movement of the deeper and nutrient-richer water masses of the Cretan sea and will influence the extremely oligotrophic character of the South Aegean Sea, also having a direct effect on the biology of the region. This was actually observed during 1994 when a number of chemical-environmental parameters displayed dramatically higher concentrations in both the water column and the sediments. As a consequence an increase in benthic productivity and fish recruitment over the continental margin is expected in the years to come.

Among many other results produced by the pilot phase of the Mediterranean Targeted Project, these few examples illustrate the change in current understanding of the life of the Mediterranean Sea. The results are interesting not only from the purely scientific point of view, they can also be used to monitor changes in the whole Mediterranean environment (sea, watershed population and activities) and socio-economic studies (tourism, fisheries). Furthermore they open up new opportunities for climate modelling and coastal management. In this sense, the project has been especially successful in pioneering efforts to include ecological processes in numerical models. Implications of these efforts range from the possibility of deploying detailed models for coastal ecosystem management, to the inclusion of biological processes for estimation of anthropogenic climate change on sea health.

So far, more than 200 scientific publications have originated from MTP. A framework for Data Quality Assurance was developed for the project in order to improve the quality of the data. Two large workshops were held (Barcelona, 1994 and Crete, 1996) to communicate scientific findings. The current conference will bring together all the scientific results so far.

The Mediterranean Targeted Project is now entering its second phase (1996 - 1999) - the age of maturity - and will undoubtedly contribute to its ultimate goals. The new MAST project has the name Mediterranean Targeted Project phase II-Mass Transfer and Ecosystem Response(MTPII-MATER,contractMAS3-CT96-0051) and it involves 53 partners (including the Joint Research Centre of the European Union) from 11 European countries, Morocco, and Tunisia. Its budget amounts to ECU 10.589 million from the MAST Programme and ECU 221,000 from the International Cooperation Programme. Also worth mentioning is the operational structure of the project with a steering committee and a matrix-like organisation (research themes vs geographic regions).

It is now accepted that MTP has contributed enormously to the creation of a well-identifiable community of scientists involved in Mediterranean research and can be used as a model for coordination of oceanographic research.

The MTP was and continues to be an important instrument for the scientific cooperation which the EU promotes in the Mediterranean Sea.