Preprint volume - SIBM

Pre-print Volume – Oral presentations
Topic 3: INTEGRATED COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT
i) High discordances among cartographies realized in three different periods. As large
differences in meadow extension and typology in a single year are unlikely, these are to
be considered as due to errors in the positioning and/or interpretation of sonograms.
Such large errors prevent any possibility to evaluate evolution of the meadows over
short term time scales (i.e., between 1990-91 and 2006). A well definite protocol for
the use of acoustic techniques when mapping seagrass is recommended, including the
adoption of systematic ground truthing criteria and designs.
ii) Superimposed to short term (i.e. decadal) time scale, P. oceanica meadows show a
long-term (i.e. millennial) time scale evolution. The results obtained from core V1 call
for integration with more spatially dispersed data, but suggest that long-term evolution
of the meadow comprises periods of natural expansion and regression. Additional data
are also needed to clarify the link between climatic events during Holocene and P.
oceanica evolution.
iii) discordances in meadows extension evaluation lead to variations of the economic
value of Vado-Bergeggi meadow: 102460 €·y -1 (1990), 0 €·y -1 (1991), 20818 €·y -1
(2006). It is compulsory to specify that these values probably represent an
underestimation of P. oceanica value since they not include other services as, e.g.,
biodiversity source and coastal protection from erosion.
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Work partially done under the aegis of the project ‘The impacts of biological invasions and
climate change on the biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea’ (Italy–Israel co-operation, Italian
Ministry of Environment).
41 st S.I.B.M. CONGRESS Rapallo (GE), 7-11 June 2010
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