Greece Leads Black Sea Projects on Maritime Spatial Planning and Pollution Control

Black Sea formation successful Mamaia, Romania. Credit: Alexandru Panoiu / CC BY 2.0.

Drawing connected its long-standing maritime expertise, Greece is an progressive subordinate successful the Interreg Black Sea Basin Programme, an EU inaugural aimed astatine fostering determination collaboration. The state plays a important relation successful marine spatial planning, mapping, and biology protection, establishing itself arsenic a invaluable spouse successful the Black Sea region.

The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) maintains beardown ties with the region. Thessaloniki’s humanities and geographical connections with neighboring countries specified arsenic Bulgaria and Romania, arsenic good arsenic broader migration flows implicit the past century, person strengthened its links with the Black Sea Basin.

Key projects involving Aristotle University of Thessaloniki successful the Black Sea

One flagship inaugural is the MARMAPS project, funded by the Interreg Black Sea Programme and scheduled for completion by the extremity of 2025.

According to Professor Antonios Mazaris of AUTH’s Department of Biology, the task brings unneurotic 4 partners: the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki of Greece, the Ukrainian Environmental Service, a Romanian NGO, and the coordinating pb partner, the Black Sea NGO Network subdivision successful Varna, Bulgaria.

The project’s extremity is to found an unfastened portfolio of accusation resources to enactment marine spatial readying successful the Black Sea. This aligns with the Convention connected Biological Diversity, signed by 197 countries, and the EU’s biodiversity strategy, which requires subordinate states to support 30 percent of terrestrial and marine areas by 2030, with 10 percent nether strict protection.

Another ongoing inaugural is Response, coordinated by AUTH successful concern with institutions from Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, and Georgia. This task focuses connected tackling marine pollution, with a circumstantial accent connected contamination linked to equipped conflicts, peculiarly applicable successful airy of the warfare successful Ukraine.

Expert perspectives

“One of the cardinal outcomes of the Response task volition beryllium a instrumentality enabling a wide scope of users—from authorities services and ministries to universities and schools—to make acquisition programs that code circumstantial issues of marine pollution,” explained Professor Mazaris.

The task besides aims to prosecute stakeholders done applicable resources specified arsenic monitoring manuals, national subject guidelines, and standardized protocols aligned with planetary models and EU directives. These tools volition guarantee information postulation and investigation are structured, reliable, and comparable crossed the region.