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Description
BlueForests brings together a team of Portuguese and Norwegian scientists, SME specialized in seaweed aquaculture and ocean engineering solutions and a collaborative laboratory between academic and industrial communities to face climate change and environmental sustainability, to advance science and test technological innovations to rebuild Portuguese marine forests and to value their ecosystem services. New technologies to restore Portuguese marine forests, including oceanography-ecosystem modelling and GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis to reveal the best locations for seaforestation and offshore hotspots of organic matter deposition, will be used. Novel techniques of planting will be developed, tested and optimized and seaforestations will be monitored. The outwelling of organic matter from Portuguese marine forests to offshore hotspots of accumulation within the sediments will be quantified and characterized by a series of techniques, including eDNA. The ecosystem services of marine forests will be economically valuated as this is a key step to halt biodiversity loss and the degradation of ecosystems in the EU. An dissemination effort will be done not only to the scientific community but also to the general public, stakeholders and managers, to inform public policies for sustainable management, contributing to the welfare of populationsIt will contribute for the reversal of the loss of marine forests, rebuilding a key marine life support system along the Portuguese coast that delivers fundamental global and regional ecosystem services, such as climate change mitigation, support of biodiversity, including fisheries resources, water purification, protection of the coastline and disease control. The impact of the project will be both regional and global not only taking in considerations the novel methodologies for seaforestation that may be applied elsewhere but also of its future consequences in terms of the enhancement of marine forest ecosystem services.