ACTNOW

ACTNOW - Advancing understanding of Cumulative Impacts on European marine biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services for human wellbeing is an EU-funded research project that provides regulators and decision-makers the knowledge and fit-for-purpose tools they need to combat biodiversity loss in coastal and marine habitats threatened by climate change (CC) interacting with other local and regional drivers.
We are conducting our research and cooperating with marine and MPA managers in Case Study Regions across Europe. Our goal is to deliver concrete scientific support to regulators charged with implementing adaptation and mitigation measures, sustainably expand the blue economy and provide nationally determined contributions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
ACTNOW is focused on understanding and projecting impacts of multiple stressors on marine biodiversity. We will work with regulators to provide solution options including an Integrated Biodiversity Assessment, and a number of online decision support tools.
To achieve this, the objectives of ACTNOW defined following goals:
Co-create regionalized ‘what if’ scenarios of interacting drivers and management actions to forecast impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in European coastal and marine regions;
Develop a systemic approach for the integrated impact assessment of coastal and marine ecosystem processes and services, and assessment of the state of coastal and marine ecosystems health, and resilience to cumulative pressures;
Understand the combined impacts of different types of pressures or perturbations on coastal and marine biodiversity and ecosystems condition;
Increase understanding of the biological mechanisms determining the response of organisms and ecosystems to environmental changes and limiting their adaptation capacity, and the implications for the management of marine areas, habitats and species;
Employ state-of-the-art biologging technology and molecular methods, in combination with knowledge on oceanographic processes to understand the effects of agents of change on the ecology and population dynamics through marine food webs;
Rationalise and advance strategies for monitoring European populations of marine species at the top of food chains, and have life histories that make them especially susceptible to change;
Integrate existing and new biodiversity data and knowledge from multiple origins, including other EU (Horizon Europe and previous framework Programmes), international and national research projects;
Develop technologies, methods and models to quantify and forecast how cumulative anthropogenic perturbations can affect the sustainability, productivity and resilience of marine ecosystems against environmental drivers;
Enhance awareness and understanding of links between marine biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and human health through capacity building, public outreach and by creating decision-support tools for regulators for the best context-dependent assessment and actions to achieve or restore good environmental status.