OCEANOGRAFIA APPLICATA E DINAMICA DEGLI ECOSISTEMI
(objectives)
With the affirmation in international law of the "Exclusive Economic Zone" concept, and with the adoption of ecological protection areas, Italy has to face the problem of protecting the marine environment from a different perspective, which consider not only the coastal areas but also the offshore zones. In this perspective the continental shelf shall be considered an extension of the national territories where hydrocarbons, materials for the ceramic industry, glass industry, metallurgy are extracted and fishing, mariculture and tourism are practiced. Moreover, there is concentrated a growing maritime traffic and almost all the marine engineering works. The coastal marine domain is characterized on one side by physical and ecological conditions that favor life, and on the other side by the multiple uses of the spaces that generate a high conflict between human activities. The new European strategy of "Blue Growth" also explicitly defines the criteria for the sustainable management of maritime spaces and the monitoring of marine ecosystems through analysis of ecosystem services and an integrated approach that provides in situ observations, forecasting models and remote sensing data. Because the common asset of the sea, an interdisciplinary approach to the marine management in its most general sense is of primary importance, with expertise in meteorology, oceanography, geology and biology. The course has general aim to provide the theoretical and experimental preparatory elements to the study and analysis of marine activities that the students will face in public institutions and in private once they graduate. The course describes, at different spatial and temporal scales, how pelagic and benthic marine ecosystems can be altered by different human disturbance sources, summarizing the basics of marine ecology and oceanography that are the basis of the principles of nature conservation, biodiversity and use of natural resources. Measure theory, methods of sampling and measurement in marine ecology, oceanographic measuring instruments, analysis and interpretation of data are included. Different case histories concerning the management and conservation of the marine environment are presented.
|
Code
|
17506 |
Language
|
ITA |
Type of certificate
|
Profit certificate
|
Credits
|
9
|
Scientific Disciplinary Sector Code
|
BIO/07
|
Contact Hours
|
56
|
Laboratory Hours
|
16
|
Type of Activity
|
Core compulsory activities
|
Teacher
|
MARCELLI Marco
(syllabus)
The role and importance of the sea and oceans.
I: Oceanic and ecological dynamics and their spatial and temporal scales
Elements of geography and representation of the earth's surface; morphology and evolution of the ocean floor principles. Origin of the sea and oceans and property of marine waters. Principles of chemistry, physics and dynamics of seas and oceans. The boundary conditions and the influence of the environment on the continental coastal marine system. Morphology and dynamics of the coasts.
Marine oceanic and coastal habitats. The benthos zonation and Mediterranean benthic biocenosis: the classifications of Perès Picard and Riedl.
Vertical and horizontal distribution of oceanographic and ecological variables. Marine ecological dynamics: biogeochemical cycles, ecological successions. Spatial and temporal scales of physical and ecological dynamics of marine and oceanic environments: phenomena and processes at the micro, meso and macro scale.
II: Renewable and non-renewable resources, the uses of the coastal zone
The concept of natural resource. Marine renewable resources (fisheries and aquaculture, marine renewable energies) and non-renewable resources (mining and quarrying activities in the coastal and offshore area). The use of the sea and coastline. Categories and classification of coastal uses.
III: The problems of the coastal zone, marine pollution and depositional environments. Principles of protecting and preserving the marine environment. Marine management tools.
Pollution of coastal marine environment: depositional environments and contamination. Classification, destiny and cycles of pollutants. The problem of coastal erosion and the concept of physiographic units. The coastal morphotypes. Dynamics of beaches and beach nourishment. Bioaccumulation and biomagnification, changes in the trophic structure, alteration of biotic communities. Human time scales and scale of human impacts. Residence time. Climate changes. Sustainable development, natural capital evaluation and other management tools. Introduction to marine protection legislation. Case histories of different issues and at different spatial and temporal scales.
IV: Platforms and measuring instruments. Sampling equipment. Experimental methods.
The problem of sampling scales and measuring. The definition of the sampling plan and the identification of the variables to be measured: the marine environment descriptors. Issues related to environmental monitoring. Platforms and data acquisition systems and their relative spatial and temporal scales (research vessels, satellites and airplanes, underwater towed and autonomous vehicles and oceanographic buoys, stations, ARGO and drifters). Measurement tools and methods: physical-chemical characteristics and optical properties of sea water; direct and indirect measures of biomass and primary production; dynamic characteristics. Active underwater acoustic instruments (depth, ecological and geomorphological features of the seabed) and passive instruments (sounds and noise). Equipment and methods for sampling, storage and transport of samples: sea water, phytoplankton and zooplankton, bottom sediments, benthos. Instrumentation and laboratory methods in marine ecology. Methods of direct investigation by diver.
V: The restitution of the information. Data analysis and mathematical models.
The structure of the data. The calibration of the instruments. The calibration of the data. Errors, their causes, data filtering techniques. Statistical data analysis. Methods of information restitution. Databases and GIS. International data exchange and sharing of databases. Theory and application of mathematical models. Limits and opportunities for development.
(reference books)
Course lecture notes by Prof. Marco Marcelli. Other teaching material will be provided during the course, consisting of articles and publications. Recommended reference texts: • Mann, Kenneth Henry, and John RN Lazier. Dynamics of marine ecosystems: biological-physical interactions in the oceans. John Wiley & Sons, 2013. • TRUJILLO, A. P.; THURMAN, H. V. Introductory Oceanography. 2007. • Danovaro, Roberto. Biologia marina: biodiversità e funzionamento degli ecosistemi marini. Città studi edizioni, 2013. Other teaching material, articles and publications, will be provided during the course.
|
Dates of beginning and end of teaching activities
|
From to |
Delivery mode
|
Traditional
|
Attendance
|
not mandatory
|
Evaluation methods
|
Oral exam
|
|
|