The EcoScope Project aims to promote effective and efficient, ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management. EcoScope will develop an interoperable platform, a robust decision-making toolbox, a series of online courses and a mobile application. These tools will be available through a single public portal, to promote an efficient, ecosystem-based approach to the management of fisheries and achieve maximum and continuous participation of stakeholders.
The four-year (2021-2025) project addresses ecosystem degradation and anthropogenic impact that cause fisheries to be unsustainably exploited in several European Seas and promotes efficient, holistic, sustainable, ecocentric fisheries management that will aid towards restoring fisheries sustainability and ensuring balance between food security and healthy seas.
The EcoScope Platform will organise and homogenise climatic, oceanographic, biogeochemical, biological and fisheries datasets for European Seas to a common standard type and format that will be available to the users through interactive mapping layers. This info will be presented to users through user friendly interactive mapping layers.
The international consortium will develop the EcoScope Toolbox, a scoring system linked to the platform, that will host ecosystem models, socio-economic indicators, fisheries and ecosystem assessment tools that will be used to examine and develop fisheries management and marine policy scenarios as well as maritime spatial planning simulations.
EcoScope applies novel assessment methods for data-poor fisheries, including non-commercial species, as well as for biodiversity and the conservation status of protected megafauna. This will include an assessment of the status of all ecosystem components across European Seas and will test new technologies for evaluating the environmental, anthropogenic and climatic impact on ecosystems and fisheries.
A series of sophisticated capacity building tools, such as online courses, documentary films, webinars and games, will be available to stakeholders through the EcoScope Academy.
The international EcoScope project is comprised of 24 partners from Greece, Bulgaria, Germany, Canada, Israel, Philippines, Spain, France, Belgium, UK, Portugal, Italy, Netherlands, Malta, Norway, Switzerland and Cyprus. The partners include universities and research institutions, NGO’s, technology companies and businesses.
Outputs
The EcoScope Platform
The EcoScope Platform will be a novel, modular, interdisciplinary e-tool integrating meteorological, oceanographic, biogeochemical, environmental, biological, fisheries and socio-economic datasets, into a single interface covering all European Seas. The platform will use existing datasets, databases, platforms and maps and the output of projects already…
The EcoScope Toolbox
The EcoScope Toolbox will operate as a decision-support tool for policy makers, advisory bodies and researchers. The toolbox will use a scoring system based on assessments of all ecosystem components and their drivers including habitats, species distributions, fisheries and environmental forcing, climate change, fisheries reference points, conservation status of…
The EcoScope Academy
The knowledge created in the EcoScope Toolbox and EcoScope Platform, as well as the scientific output of the EcoScope project will be shared through capacity building in the EcoScope Academy, which will promote cross community education and knowledge sharing. The EcoScope Academy will hold a series of online courses, webinars and serious gaming to build…
The EcoScope App
The project will also develop the EcoScope App, a mobile phone application for enhancing the engagement of the public in fisheries management within the ecosystem context. The EcoScope App will be a smartphone application which will enable citizens to report on marine hazards, illegal fishing practices, removal or stranding of protected species, marine litter…
