Angel Borja

AZTI · Marine Research Division

The European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requires EU Member States (MS) to achieve Good Environmental Status (GEnS) of their seas by 2020. We address the question of what GEnS entails especially with regard to the level at which targets are set (descriptors, criteria, indicators), to scales for assessments (regional, sub-divisions, s...

This viewpoint paper explores the potential of genomics technology to provide accurate, rapid, and cost efficient observations of the marine environment. The use of such approaches in next generation marine monitoring programs will help achieve the goals of marine legislation implemented world-wide. Genomic methods can yield faster results from mon...

The implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) is directing European marine research towards the coordinated and integrated assessment of sea environmental status, following the ecosystem-based approach. The MSFD uses a set of 11 descriptors which, together, summarise the way in which the whole system functions. As such, the E...

Through implementing environmental Directives, Europe has moved towards coordinated and integrated catchment-to-coast management, following the most novel legislation on ecosystem-based approaches worldwide. The novel joint synthesis of this direction reviewed here allows us to regard the Water Framework Directive (WFD) as a 'deconstructing structu...

keynote presentation in the opening session of ICES ASC conference in Bilbao, 11th September 2023, showing the challenges in sustainability for the ocean, as well as the link between the status and the supply of ecosystem services and benefits for humans

Microbes have often been overlooked as indicators of how the ecological status is affected by human pressures. Recently, the biotic index microgAMBI was proposed to assess the status of marine sediments and waters, and it has been tested under different pressures and biogeographical areas. This index is based on the assignation of microbial taxa to...

Seagrass meadows provide a wide variety of ecosystem goods and services (biodiversity maintenance, carbon sequestration, sediment oxygenation and enrichment, filtering, coastal protection, and nursery area for other species). For this reason, they are areas of high economic development while historically highly impacted by human activity. Therefore...

Microbes have usually been neglected as indicators to assess the ecological status, under multiple human pressures. Some years ago, a biotic index (microgAMBI) was proposed to assess the ecological status of marine sediments and waters, and it has been tested under different pressures and biogeographical areas. The index is based on the assignation...

Introduction Marine biodiversity loss has direct and indirect effects on human health and wellbeing. Recent European data suggest that the public is aware of this, identifying marine biodiversity protection as its top research priority in terms of oceans and human health, rated higher than issues such as plastic, chemical, and microbial pollution....

Macrobenthic organisms are useful bioindicators to assess ecological quality status. On the south-central coast of Peru (13°15.15′ S, 76°18.5′ W), a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) marine terminal has been operating since 2010. We investigated the macrobenthic communities and sediment parameters from 2011 to 2020 to evaluate the ecological quality stat...

Monitoring benthic fauna in the Gulf of Mexico is needed to assess its ecological status under multiple human pressures and natural variability. The knowledge about the large-scale and long-term variability of the benthic ecological status still needs to be improved. Here, AZTI's Marine Biotic Index (AMBI) and multivariate AMBI (M-AMBI) assess bent...

Increased pressures from human activities may cause cumulative ecological effects on marine ecosystems. Increasingly, the study of ecosystem services is applied in the marine environment to assess the full effects of human activities on the ecosystem and on the benefits it provides. However, in the marine environment, such integrated studies have y...

The European Commission tendered the study “Marine Biodiversity Modelling” [RTD/2021/MV/10] to pursue the identification and characterization of a subset of candidate biodiversity models that could contribute to the implementation of the European Digital Twin of the Ocean (EU DTO). The EU DTO will be an operational infrastructure for digital ocean...

Increased pressures from human activities may cause cumulative ecological effects on marine ecosystems. Increasingly, the study of ecosystem services is applied in the marine environment to assess the full effects of human activities on the ecosystem and on the benefits it provides. However, in the marine environment, such integrated studies have y...

In view of the unique oceanographic conditions combined with human pressure, we assessed the ecological status of macrobenthos from the entire Saudi waters (including open waters and inner bays) of the Gulf in 2013. A total of 328 macrobenthic species (228 polychaete species, 47 crustacean species, 46 mollusc species, and seven species belonging to...

Marine Strategy Framework Directive Terminology Definitions and Lists GES4SEAS WP2: Developing the conceptual framework and knowledge base for ecosystem based management Task 2.1. Setting up the state-of-the-art of cumulative pressure impacts and ecosystem management approaches towards achieving Good Environmental Status within the MSFD

The European Green Deal sets out the ambition to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, while addressing other environmental challenges, boosting the economy, improving people's health and quality of life, and ensuring an inclusive and just transition (European Commision, 2019). As part of the Green Deal, the Commission adopted th...

Multiple stressors are continuously deteriorating surface waters worldwide, posing many challenges for their conservation and restoration. Combined effect types of multiple stressors range from single-stressor dominance to complex interactions. Identifying prevalent combined effect types is critical for environmental management, as it helps to prio...

The assemblages of marine benthic organisms and sediment characteristics were investigated in the coastal area between the Mario Zucchelli Antarctic Research Station and Adelie Cove in Terra Nova Bay (Ross Sea, Southern Ocean) during the 2015 summer season. Sediment samples were taken from 11 stations at depths between 25 and 140 m. The dominance o...

La década 2021-2030 presenta diversas iniciativas internacionales que van a requerir que la investigación marina explore nuevos campos o profundice en otros en los que se ha venido trabajando en los últimos años. Estas iniciativas son la Década de Naciones Unidas (ONU) de las Ciencias Marinas para el Desarrollo Sostenible (DOSSD; Claudet et al., 20...

The EMOD-PACE project, funded by the European Commission, aimed to promote international ocean governance between EU and China. One of the objectives of EMOD-PACE is to compare European and Chinese modelling approaches for ecosystem vulnerability assessment. In particular, our objective was to test the applicability of the Chinese evaluation approa...

Program of the GES4SEAS summer school 2022

introducción to the 18th AZTI's summer school and the 1st from GES4SEAS project

Offshore wind energy is widely regarded as one of the most credible sources for increasing renewable energy production towards a resilient and decarbonised energy supply. However, current expectations for the expansion of energy production from offshore wind may lead to significant environmental impacts. Assessing ecological risks to marine ecosys...

In the context of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, 2008/56/EC), Member States are required to assess the environmental status of marine waters. With the aim to support practitioners in this effort, and guide them in the identification of management solutions, a team of researchers has brought together available information fo...

The ocean is facing multiple pressures from human activities, including the effects of climate change. Science has a prominent role in identifying problems and communicating these to society. However, scientists are also increasingly taking an active role in developing solutions, including strategies for adapting to and mitigating climate change, i...

The study of the presence of antibiotics in the aquatic environment is a preliminary step to analyse their possible harmful effects on aquatic ecosystems. In order to monitor their occurrence in the aquatic environment, the European Commission established in 2015, 2018, and 2020 three Watch Lists of substances for Union-wide monitoring (Decisions (...

presentation made at AdriaClim conference in Split (Croatia), on 7th June 2022

The production of energy from waves is gaining attention. In its expansion strategy, technical, environmental and socioeconomic aspects should be taken into account to identify suitable areas for development of wave energy projects. In this research we provide a novel approach for suitable site identification for wave energy farms. To achieve this...

The plethora of human activities and their pressures and impacts in the oceans require managing at local, national, regional and international scales. This requires management responses in a programme of measures to determine (a) the area in which the human activities take place, (b) the area covered by the pressures generated by the activities on...

This chapter addresses the use of fish as indicators of environmental health. The main anthropogenic pressures impacting estuarine fishes are reviewed, as well as the main types of responses by fishes at different levels of biological organisation. Fishes have been widely used to assess estuarine health through different methodological approaches,...

Local, regional and global targets have been set to halt marine biodiversity loss. Europe has set its own policy targets to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) of marine ecosystems by implementing the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) across member states. We combined an extensive dataset across five Mediterranean ecoregions including...

Marine ecosystems contribute to human well-being, e.g. through the promotion of nature-based recreational activities such as surfing, which is a benefit obtained from Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES). Our research objective is to identify the benefits and impacts associated to surfing, and who are the main affected subjects and/or objects, achievi...

Human activities exert significant impacts on marine ecosystems, which entails the need for management measures to ensure the conservation and restoration of ocean biodiversity and the ecosystem services they provide. One of the most effective management measures is the declaration of marine protected areas. The main objective of the LIFE IP INTEMA...

Deterioration of the sediment environment and benthic ecosystem is an undesirable effect of eutrophication, but little is known about the response of macrobenthic communities to eutrophication and their long-term recovery. In the present study, temporal changes in benthic ecological status, associated with reductions in anthropogenic impacts on a l...

The need for sustainability transitions is widely recognised, along with a concurrent need for the evolution of knowledge systems to inform more effective policy action. Although there are many new policy targets relating to net zero emissions and other sustainability challenges, cities, regional and national governments are struggling to rapidly d...

It is axomatic that a system cannot be managed unless it is measured and that the measurements occur in a rigorous, defendable manner covering relevant spatial and temporal scales. Furthermore, it is not possible to predict the future direction of a system unless any predictive approach or model is supported by empirical evidence from monitoring. T...

In the context of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD 2008/56/EC), a multidisciplinary study was carried out, with researchers from different disciplines, bringing together solutions for management practitioners in the Basque coastal zone (SE part of the Bay of Biscay). This area was selected as case-study and divided into Marine Reportin...

The environmental impacts of wave energy converters are still largely unknown, being a barrier that could hinder their deployment. The objective of the present work was the development of a framework and a tool for quantifying and analysing the ecological risks of three technologies: oscillating water columns, oscillating wave surge converters, an...

Implementing European marine policies in the deep waters of the North Atlantic

Towards the assessment of North Atlantic deep sea ecosystems’ status: opportunities and challenges unraveled by the ATLAS project.

Marine renewable energy has considerable potential for enhancing the diversity of renewable sources, to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and combat climate change. While the technological development of wave energy converters is progressing rapidly, their environmental impacts are still largely unknown, which is a barrier that could hinder their...

Global ocean warming, wave extreme events, and accelerating sea-level rise are challenges that coastal communities must address to anticipate damages in coming decades. The objective of this study is to undertake a time-series analysis of climate change (CC) indicators within the Bay of Biscay, including the Basque coast. We used an integrated and...

Environmental conservation is currently one of the main objectives of marine management. It is agreed that effective management requires evaluating the tradeoffs between protection and economic costs for negatively impacted maritime activities. For these reasons, integrated approaches combining ecological and socioeconomic aspects are needed to ach...

Microbial communities inhabiting soil-water-sediment continuum in coastal areas provide important ecosystem services. Their adaptation in response to environmental stressors, particularly mitigating the impact of pollutants discharged from human activities, has been considered for the development of microbial biomonitoring tools, but their use is s...

Galparsoro, I., Á. Borja, I. Menchaca, J. Franco, M. C. Uyarra, A. Uriarte, G. Chust y J. Bald, 2020. Elaboración del diagnóstico sobre el medio marino e identificación de líneas de trabajo futuras para la Estrategia de Biodiversidad de la CAPV 2030. Informe elaborado por AZTI para Ihobe. 96 pp + Anexos.

The study of the presence of antibiotics, considered as Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CEC), in the aquatic environment is a preliminary step to analyse their possible harmful effects on aquatic ecosystems. In order to monitor the occurrence of CECs in the aquatic environment, the European Commission established in 2015 and 2018 two watch-list o...

Currently, in tropical regions such as the southern Gulf of Mexico (sGM), there are no legal guidelines for assessing the quality of the seafloor. We aim to determine whether the seafloor sustainability of the sGM is evenly distributed, based on pressures that human activities produce upon the marine coastal environment, represented by the water qu...

Waste remediation (waste decomposition) is one of the ecosystem services (ES) salmon farming relies upon to reduce organic waste from the uneaten food and fish faeces through the metabolism of fauna and aerobic and anaerobic microbial communities. Our objective was to infer the changes that may occur in ecosystem capacity for reducing organic matte...

Speech at IBRM-CNR institute

adaptation of NEAT to apply the MSFD guidelines, in Malta

Use of NEAT (Nested Environmental status Assessment Tool) to assess the status of marine ecosystems in an integrative way, under the ecosystem approach

Abstract This report reviews the integration methods for MSFD biodiversity assessments under Descriptor 1 for species that are not covered by the Habitats Directive and are not commercial fish assessed under Descriptor 3 and used in Descriptor 1 assessments. It was carried out by experts from the MSFD Biodiversity expert network, which is coordina...