The National Biodiversity Future Centre (NBFC) aims at harmonizing the current marine-coastal biodiversity knowledge, integrating it in databases and adopting, promoting, and making prevalent the use of the most cost/effective new/emerging monitoring methodologies and technologies. NBFC has the ambitious goal to implement a National (Marine) Biodiversity Observatory System reviewing the marine monitoring in Italy (what is done, where, and by how, how much it costs, redundancies and major gaps) and collecting data from institutional national/international programs, literature, public marine data portals, and citizen science.

Oceanographic campaign on board the CNR R/V Gaia Blu from the 12th to the 22th of May 2024 in the Gulf of Naples The cruise joint the objectives of three projects, all of them intended at exploring, monitoring and restoring deep-sea habitats, the LIFE DREAM (https://www.life-dream.eu/), Spoke 1 and Spoke 2 of the PNRR NBFC (https://www.nbfc.it/en) and the HE REDRESS (https://redress-project.eu/) projects. The habitat targeted by the cruise are the cold-water corals, the deep-water oysters reefs, and the deep black coral forest, with the aim to: - restore the vulnerable marine habitats by removing the marine litter; - restore the vulnerable marine habitats by installing artificial reefs on the seafloor that provide hard substrate suitable for recruiting juvenile individuals; - monitor the vulnerable deep-sea habitats and the impacts of restoration actions by means of permanent deep observation systems; - increase knowledge and awareness on these deep-sea habitats, their ecosystem services and the importance of restoring, conserving and protecting them.

Oceanographic campaign on board the CNR R/V Gaia Blu from the 28th March to the 11th of April (LEG1) and then from the 8th May to the 14th May 2024 (LEG2), in the following monitoring sites: Santa Maria di Leuca, Monopoli continental shelf, Bari Canyon, Dauno Seamount, and Dohrn Canyon. The cruise joint the objectives of three projects, all of them intended at exploring, monitoring and restoring deep-sea habitats, the LIFE DREAM (https://www.life-dream.eu/), Spoke 1 and Spoke 2 of the PNRR NBFC (https://www.nbfc.it/en) and the HE REDRESS (https://redress-project.eu/) projects. The habitat targeted by the cruise are the cold-water corals, the deep-water oysters reefs, and the deep black coral forest, with the aim to: - restore the vulnerable marine habitats by removing the marine litter; - restore the vulnerable marine habitats by installing artificial reefs on the seafloor that provide hard substrate suitable for recruiting juvenile individuals; - monitor the vulnerable deep-sea habitats and the impacts of restoration actions by means of permanent deep observation systems; - increase knowledge and awareness on these deep-sea habitats, their ecosystem services and the importance of restoring, conserving and protecting them.

La distribuzione delle biocostruzioni lungo le coste della Puglia è conosciuta soltanto per alcuni tratti, con particolare riferimento al coralligeno, ma non è disponibile una cartografia georeferenziata aggiornata a scala regionale e, soprattutto, non è noto lo stato di conservazione delle “Scogliere” per la maggior parte della regione. In considerazione della continua crescita di pressioni antropiche, spesso interagenti, risulta altresì indispensabile l’implementazione di adeguate misure di conoscenza e di gestione finalizzate alla conservazione degli ecosistemi e dall’uso sostenibile delle risorse naturali in accordo con le Direttive Europee. In questo contesto in Puglia, nasce il progetto Biomap, che mira a dare un valido contributo alla rivisitazione dei SIC già esistenti e con la finalità di verificare e analizzare la presenza di “Scogliere” in vista della considerazione di questo habitat ai fini dell’attuazione della Direttiva sopra citata.

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Benthic habitat map of the Campania Region produced in the framework of the FEAMP-ISSPA Project by CNR-ISMAR

Benthic habitat map of the Southern Adriatic Sea (Mediterranean Sea) from Object-Based Image Analysis of Multi-Source Acoustic Backscatter Data. Scale 1:300.00. Authors: Prampolini M., Angeletti L., Castellan G., Grande V., Le Bas T., Taviani M., Foglini F.