Nutrient dynamics – Eutrophication

The field focuses on nutrients that are either driven by or have an impact on biological activity, in particular nitrogen and phosphorus. Anthropogenic nutrient enrichment of coastal waters is a global and growing stressor with impacts that vary across ecosystems and change over time. Nutrient enriched coastal waters, eutrophication phenomena and their effects on the marine environments are studied and assessed using appropriate methodological tools. Integrative methodological tools (e.g. NEAT) have been applied in the frame of EU projects, for the assessment of coastal eutrophication and the support of the implementation of the MSFD and WFD Directives. Inorganic nutrients, Total Nitrogen and Total Phosphorus inputs are the primary criteria for eutrophication assessment changes in the coastal marine ecosystems.

In the open Eastern Mediterranean waters, nutrient dynamics are studied and linked to water mass characteristics, as well as to biogeochemical processes. The analysis of the nutrients in these waters revealed the existing analogies between the chemical and physical parameters and dynamics in (i) the spatial distributions, (ii) the signals corresponding to physical processes and (iii) the temporal variability, from seasonal to interannual. The combination of the chemical parameters with the physical ones allowed us to explain the major changes in the distribution of nutrients before, during and after the Eastern Mediterranean Transient (EMT), the major climatic event in the circulation and water mass properties of the Mediterranean in the last century.