SESAME was a 4-year Integrated Project (IP), funded by the EU’s 6th Framework Programme. The general scientific objectives of SESAME were to assess and predict changes in the Mediterranean and Black Sea ecosystems as well as changes in the ability of these ecosystems to provide goods and services. The Mediterranean and Black Sea were approached as a coupled climatic/ecosystem entity, with links and feedbacks to the world ocean. The assessment of ecosystem changes was based on the identification of the major regime shifts in ecosystems that occurred during the last 50 years. Mathematical models, validated and upgraded using existing and new observations, were used to predict ecosystem responses to changes in climate and anthropogenic forcings during the next five decades. New data were gathered during multidisciplinary, multiship oceanographic cruises in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. The new datasets provided an overall picture of the Mediterranean and Black Sea that did not exist as well as essential data for model validation. SESAME also studied the effect of the ecosystem variability on key goods and services with high societal importance like tourism, fisheries, ecosystem stability through conservation of biodiversity and mitigation of climate change through carbon sequestration in water and sediments. The innovative character of SESAME was reflected in the close merging of economic and natural sciences to study the changes in the western and eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea within the period from 50 years in the past to 50 years in the future. SESAME created a platform for disseminating the research results to all levels of society. It stimulated and strengthened international cooperation in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions through the participation of research organizations from Member States, Associated States, Associated Candidate countries, non-EU Mediterranean and NIS countries as well as international organizations.

Geographic Coverage: Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea
Duration: 54 months