Governments and marine authorities increasingly rely on accurate, forward-looking information to protect marine life, respond to climate impacts, and manage the growing pressures on our oceans.
At the Ocean Sciences Meeting 2026 (22-28th Feb, 2026), the EU NECCTON project and OceanPredict will host a special session demonstrating how the latest generation of ecosystem models is providing exactly this kind of actionable insight.
The sessions demonstrates how integrated ecosystem models — combining Copernicus Marine Service outputs, in situ observations, machine learning, and process-based approaches — are enabling anticipatory, science-based decision-making in the context of accelerating climate change and increasing cumulative human pressures.
Contributions address key priorities including:
- Operational oceanography for policy support - including hybrid AI–numerical approaches that enhance biogeochemical forecasts and enable early warning of ecosystem stress, and bias-corrected climate projections that improve confidence in long-term fisheries and habitat assessments.
- Biodiversity assessment and nature restoration - by resolving plankton, zooplankton, micronekton, and fish functional groups, and by improving representation of habitat quality, oxygen stress, and ecosystem functioning on continental shelves.
- Cumulative impact and multi-stressor assessment - using new operational tools capable of simulating pollution (mercury, plastics, POPs, oil spill risk), deoxygenation, acidification, marine heatwaves, and fishing pressure within a unified modelling framework.
- From observation to action - with models co-designed with stakeholders, validated against in situ data, and delivered as open, operational products supporting regional, European, and global ocean governance.
- Climate adaptation and resilience - featuring ecosystem–population modelling of anchovy in the Bay of Biscay and the Black Sea, revealing how climate variability, fishing pressure, and food-web dynamics influence population stability and recovery.
Together, these contributions show how ecosystem modelling is becoming a strategic capability for evidence‑based ocean policy, aligned with initiatives such as the European OceanPact, Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the Nature Restoration agenda.
At the Ocean Sciences Meeting 2026 in Glasgow (22–27 February 2026), NECCTON co-organised the session “Advancing Marine Ecosystem Modeling for a Predictable and Sustainable Ocean” together with OceanPredict’s Marine Ecosystem Analysis and Prediction Task Team. ...
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