C-BLUES will significantly advance knowledge and understanding of blue carbon ecosystems (BCEs) seagrasses, tidal marshes, mangroves, macroalgae, and macroalgae mariculture aiming to achieve three overarching objectives: 1) develop new scientific knowledge within BCEs to reduce scientific uncertainty and improve reporting of blue carbon under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 2) provide input to a possible revision of the 2013 IPCC Wetlands Supplement to increase inclusion of coastal wetlands in national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories and reporting, 3) raise awareness and promote the role of blue carbon for delivering global climate policy commitments in collaboration with Chinese and other international partners. C-BLUES will perform the following: produce spatial maps, methodological best practices and standard operating procedures; enable more robust and reliable quantification of carbon emissions and sequestration; model sequestration capacity and upscale regional and global GHG budgets; assess carbon stock changes, GHG emissions and removals related to different management interventions and human activities; review legal and institutional frameworks governing BCEs; and assess the drivers and barriers for integrating coastal wetlands into national reporting mechanisms under the UNFCCC. C-BLUES will target the following Mission Ocean Lighthouse Areas (LA): LA Atlantic/Arctic, LA Baltic and North Sea, and LA Mediterranean Sea. The Black Sea, Dutch Antilles, and through collaboration with China, the Southern China coast will also be covered. C-BLUES will engage with the scientific community, climate and coastal policy makers and the wider civil society to disseminate the knowledge generated, raise awareness of BCEs and build capacity for blue carbon research inclusion. C-BLUES will effectively impact national and international climate policy work so that BCEs more prominently are included in reporting and management actions.

The NORDBALT-ECOSAFE project involves eight partners in the Nordic-Baltic region and includes seven work packages and a cross-cutting issue on climate change. The project aims to develop new standards for setting safe ecological boundaries in water bodies and novel nutrient regulations using models, mitigation and policy tools and governance schemes. We will make an in-depth assessment of nutrient reference conditions and establish harmonised safe ecological boundaries for various biological indicators in water bodies, including climate change impacts. We will apply a state-of-the-art catchment model (SWAT+) to the project’s six river basins to demonstrate to stakeholders how to estimate nutrient concentrations, loads, sources and pathways, followed by a comparison of our findings with existing national models to assess model credibility. The water body status after adoption of the new ecological boundaries will be investigated using the SWAT+ output and an analysis of a large-scale river dataset on the entire Nordic-Baltic region. In NORDBALT-ECOSAFE we will produce guidance for the use of high frequency sensors in nutrient monitoring and their pros and cons compared to standard monitoring techniques. An analysis of trends in river stoichiometry (CNP) in the region will be made and the outcome compared with that of historical policies. We will develop novel indicators for balancing GHG emissions with nutrient loadings to water bodies and a framework for novel nature-based solutions (NBSs) and mitigation measures (MMs), including guidance for optimum efficiency for nutrient reduction and side effects. Finally, a River Basin Management Support System for implementing NBSs and MMs in river basins to meet nutrient reduction targets will be developed and demonstrated. Stakeholders and policy makers will be involved at all project stages.

The overall objective of the project is to develop a virtual environment equipped with FAIR multi-disciplinary data and services to support marine and freshwater scientists and stakeholders restoring healthy oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters. The AquaINFRA virtual environment will enable the target stakeholders to store, share, access, analyse and process research data and other research digital objects from their own discipline, across research infrastructures, disciplines and national borders leveraging on EOSC and the other existing operational dataspaces. Besides supporting the ongoing development of the EOSC as an overarching research infrastructure, AquaINFRA is addressing the specific need for enabling researchers from the marine and freshwater communities to work and collaborate across those two domains. A specific goal of AquaINFRA will be to develop an EOSC based research infrastructure combining the marine and freshwater domains, which will include the development of a cross domain and cross-country search and discovery mechanism as well as building services for spatio-temporal analysis and modelling through Virtual Research Environments. A set of strategic use cases including a Pan-European use case as well as more focused use cases in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea will provide the setting for co-designing and testing services in the targeted research communities. The AquaINFRA project results are expected to contribute to the utilisation of EOSC as an overarching research infrastructure enabling collaboration across the domains of marine and freshwater scientists and stakeholders working on restoring of healthy oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters.

XTREMOLIFE will accelerate the bioprospection & biodiscovery of novel extremophile microorganisms. XTREMOLIFE uniqueness is advancing next-generation sampling technologies tailored for extreme conditions: [1] Enhanced Ferrybox for boats (self-operating), [2] novel XTREMOsensor for hand-held use, and [3] automated microscopic imagery identification. In addition, we explore (a large) biodiversity from 3 extremophilic ecosystems by bioprospecting across 5 regions (Route 1), and 5 untapped culture collections (Route 2). We will join those two routes by identifying promising extremophilic microorganisms, produced metabolites, elucidating their bioactivity and structure, optimizing their cultivation, and guaranteeing a baseline pathway towards full exploitation. We will focus on microalgae, cyanobacteria, and their associated microbiome, with a particular interest in bacteria and fungi. The culture collections NORCCA (Norway), ACUF (Italy), BEA (Spain), LEGE-CC (Portugal), TII (Abu Dhabi/UAE) will be prospected. In parallel, we will assess the microbiome and plan sampling from 5 locations: [1] Antarctic, [2] Volcanic aquatic environments in Canary Island, [3]Azores, [4]Mexico, and [5] Abu Dhabi: focusing on hypersaline and extremely hot springs. We will assess the complexity of extremophilic ecology resorting to physical, chemical and biological data gathered. The chemical prospection will cover bioassays in the human, fish and plant health fields. Bioactive compounds will be isolated, and their structure fully characterized. Together, the consortium will select up to 7 different microbial compounds of interest-producing strains to be cultivated at lab scale, followed by a scale up to TRL 5 (feeding an Exploitation Roadmap). Finally, XTREMOLIFE will cover the legal framework of sampling, preserving and exploiting genetic material. The pathway towards full industrial exploitation (5-10 years after the project) in the various markets of applications will be characterized.

Empowering Community Led Action in the Atlantic & Arctic (ACT-AA) aims to mobilise and engage communities across the Atlantic and Arctic regions in ambitious efforts to restore and protect marine and freshwater ecosystems. By fostering community-led initiatives, the project seeks to make significant progress toward the objectives of the EU Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030.” ACT-AA will provide comprehensive support to local stakeholders, including financial aid through cascading grants, technical assistance, and capacity-building resources to ensure effective and sustainable ecosystem restoration actions. ACT-AA’s key components include: 1. Cascading Grants for Community-Led Pilot Actions: Awarding at least 5 grants ranging from EUR 200,000 to EUR 2 million each to innovative projects addressing local ecological and socio-economic challenges. 2. Support for Transition Agendas: Funding at least 20 strategic roadmaps, each up to EUR 100,000, to guide communities in achieving the Mission’s objectives and ensuring long-term sustainability. 3. Technical Assistance: Providing tailored support, including business plan development, impact assessments, and capacity-building programs, to enhance local stakeholders’ ability to implement and scale innovative solutions. Expected outcomes include: 1. Demonstrable, measurable progress towards the Mission’s objectives through well-managed, community-led actions. 2. Support for EU member states and stakeholders in implementing marine and freshwater ecosystem related legislation. 3. Increased engagement and resource mobilization from communities to restore oceans, seas, and waters. 4. Enhanced readiness at the local level to deploy innovative restoration solutions. ACT-AA will ensure broad participation, leveraging local knowledge and fostering long-term commitment to ecosystem protection, thus contributing significantly to the European Green Deal’s biodiversity, pollution, and climate targets.