Artificial Intelligence (AI) is advancing at an unprecedented pace, offering transformative opportunities for marine research, fisheries management, environmental governance and policy development. Particularly in the context of the interconnected data needs of ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation, these technologies can enhance data acquisition, processing and decision support, enabling more integrated approaches to ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation. Yet their adoption in these domains remains limited by the absence of coherent frameworks that ensure transparency, validation and ethical alignment with ecological and socio-economic sustainability goals. This work proposes a comprehensive framework built on three critical pillars for trustworthy AI: socio-economic and legal viability, data governance and technical and scientific robustness. On the one hand it aims to be a guideline for developer teams. On the other hand, it aims to be a guideline for final users (e.g., industry and managers) for designing the requirements and evaluating such systems. The first pillar underscores the need for AI systems that are cost-effective, scalable, environmentally sustainable and legally supported, balancing short-term costs with long-term social and ecological benefits. The second stresses adherence to fair, reliable and ethical access to digital resources, recognising that without strong governance data and algorithms risk becoming fragmented or misused. The third pillar addresses the necessity of rigorous validation across entire AI pipelines, including preprocessing, model evaluation and benchmarking against alternative ground truths, to ensure reliability in real-world applications. Together, these pillars provide a blueprint for developing ethical, reliable and policy-relevant AI systems that can strengthen trust, improve sustainability and guide decision-making across marine science, fisheries, environmental management and European legislation.

Abstract Background Interventions that use nature contact to promote health and well-being exist at the societal/infrastructural level (incl. nature-based solutions) and the individual/group level (incl. nature-based therapies). One way nature-based therapies promote health is by fostering resilience to manage stressors. Nature-based biopsychosocial resilience theory (NBRT) provides a framework to explain how nature plays a role in how resilience-related adaptive resources are built and maintained but this has yet to be tested. Methods The current paper outlines a four-year multi-country (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK) research programme that tests the NBRT framework and explores how nature-based therapies can build and maintain individual and community resilience. As well as reviewing and mapping existing interventions globally, nine case studies across Europe are exploring how nature promotes resilience across: (1) whole populations (three case studies); (2) individuals at-risk of metabolic syndrome (three case studies); and (3) individuals with existing issues such as chronic stress, mobility challenges, or cognitive impairments (three case studies). Three case studies use longitudinal cohorts, five use randomised controlled trials, and one a practitioner shared-experience approach. The determinants and impacts of nature-based therapies are also considered beyond effects on individual participants, by assessing distributional issues (e.g., health equity), environmental impacts, financial implications, broader societal acceptability and engagement, as well as the barriers and enablers to successful implementation. In three specific case studies (Barcelona, Padua and Salzburg), this is done through multi-sectoral social innovation actions we refer to as ‘Resilience Hubs’. Results will be summarised in academic publications, a series of sector-specific guides, and an overall ‘What works’ guide for practitioners, policy makers, and the public. Discussion We use a novel theoretical framework to structure a research and innovation programme to inform the implementation of nature-based therapies across Europe and globally. Challenges include the integration of terminology and research practices from multiple disciplinary perspectives, participant recruitment and attrition, especially among marginalised groups, a potential lack of local stakeholder time and interest, potentially small effect sizes of time-limited interventions, and difficulties in identifying distinct causal mechanisms. Mitigation strategies are discussed. Trial registration Of nine case studies (CSs), five are intervention trials and have been registered: a) CS4 doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN74582097 (22.07.2024); b) CS5 doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN14169596 (10.06.2024); c) CS6 clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06622629 (30.09.2024); d) CS7 doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN93192592 (29.05.2024); e) CS8 clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06205940 (15.05.2024). All nine case studies have received ethical approval (see Declarations section).

The Western Mediterranean Sea is a region of high biodiversity and cultural heritage that is subject to significant cumulative pressures, such as fishing, shipping, invasive species, coastal development, and climate change. Effective marine management requires comprehensive assessments of cumulative pressures and their effect on environmental status. This study presents the first integrated assessment of the environmental status of the Western Mediterranean Sea using the Nested Environmental status Assessment Tool (NEAT) within the context of the European Union's Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). Combining an extensive amount of data, modelled and measured, from various sources including open databases and scientific literature, this assessment utilized a comprehensive set of 755 indicator values, covering four MSFD descriptors and 14 ecosystem components. Two distinct assessment methods were employed: a standard NEAT application, and an assessment adapting NEAT to the MSFD's hierarchical criteria structure. The results consistently showed that the Western Mediterranean does not achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) on a basin-wide scale, with non-GES across all sub-regions. The degraded conditions of several ecosystem components, specifically those associated with seafloor integrity and biodiversity, were the primary drivers of this status. While the current assessment is not completely aligned with the MSFD framework, it represents a critical step towards a standardized methodology for evaluating marine environmental status and implementing Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) in the Western Mediterranean Sea.

The complexity of social-ecological systems poses significant challenges to achieving global sustainability goals. Decision-makers can develop management interventions acting across political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental domains, but these interventions have the potential to interact and conflict in complex ways. Importantly, worldviews have the potential to influence how we perceive these interactions will occur and alter our engagement with them. This can lead to paralysis in deliberations about intervention implementation. By taking a coupled sociological-mathematical approach, we demonstrate that integrating qualitative socio-ecological system maps with quantitative analyses of the relationships within these maps can be useful to identify points of leverage to achieve sustainability. Using fuzzy cognitive mapping, we capture perspectives regarding the relatonships between political, economic, social, technological, and environmental (PESTLE) elements of a social-ecological system both now and into the future, from people with different worldviews. Qualitative Boolean analysis of the fuzzy cognitive maps showed that sustainability can be achieved for all worldviews when considering the presence of positive and negative interactions among the PESTLE elements of social-ecological systems. In contrast, using quantitative projections of the PESTLE networks that bring in data on the strengths of the relationships between the PESTLE elements, we show that not all worldviews expect sustainable outcomes, under which circumstances achieving sustainability could be challenging. However, simulating changes to the strengths of the relationships between a few of the PESTLE elements can lead to a sustainable transition in those failing cases, signalling that interventions in key parts of the system can allow the whole social-ecological system to approach a sustainable future with engagement across worldviews. We show that a pluralistic approach, increasing the positive influence of economies on environmental outcomes, can offer viable pathways to sustainability for people coming from different worldviews. This is particularly important in marine systems that, by their nature, are cross-boundary and require inter-cultural solutions.

Managing marine social-ecological systems requires governance strategies that account for uncertainty and conflicting stakeholder preferences. The Systemic Pathways to Desirable Futures (SPDF) framework is a tool for coordinating independent management actions in decentralized governance systems. It combines adaptive pathways metro maps, systems thinking, and ecosystem-based management with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SPDF was applied in Europe, in Macaronesia (focusing on tourism), the Tuscan Archipelago (focusing on tourism and seagrass conservation), and the Arctic Northeast Atlantic Ocean (focusing on pelagic fisheries). Results indicate that every SPDF metro-map navigation involves trade-offs among associated SDGs and that choosing management pathways varies according to different worldviews. Furthermore, a coordinated option, which benefits most from the hierarchy between distinct pathways, reveals Macaronesia would promote SDGs 3, 8, 9, and 14, with trade-off of SDGs 12 and 16; Tuscany promotes SDGs 3, 6, 8 12, and 14 with no trade-offs; the Artic would promote SDGs 8, 14 and 16 with trade-off of SDG 13.

Marine ecosystem services provide diverse social and economic benefits; however, their sustained supply is increasingly threatened by anthropogenic pressures. To determine environmental integrity and promote human well-being, it is necessary to investigate the functioning of marine ecosystem services. Marine cultural ecosystem benefits, such as wildlife tourism, are increasingly valued for their contributions to human well-being and local economies. This study applies the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) cascade framework to assess the ‘presence of cetaceans’ cultural ecosystem service along the Basque coast (Bay of Biscay). The links in the cascade between the different steps were analysed focusing on Delphinus delphis, the most common cetacean species in the area, and cetacean community in general. Indicators for each step of the cascade were chosen to link the environmental and socio-economic systems. Sociocultural valuation using validated psychometric scales, the Positive and Negative Affection Scale (PANAS) and Restoration Outcome Scale (ROS), showed that cetacean sightings enhanced participants’ emotional well-being and restorative experiences, especially among women and those with strong nature connectedness. The study shows that meteorological and oceanographic variables (wind speed and wave height) strongly limit the recreational activity and consequently, the human benefits derived from it. These findings demonstrate the utility of the CICES cascade in capturing the complex flow from ecological conditions (biophysical factors, function and services supply) to human benefits and values. This approach highlights the importance of combining sociocultural valuations with more traditional ecological and economic valuations, to fully understand nature’s contributions to people.

This research outlines the integration of machine learning, citizen science, environmental DNA (eDNA), and other emerging technologies to enhance marine biodiversity and invasive alien species monitoring, discussed during a summer school organized by several European projects in June 2025. Furthermore, monitoring approaches are increasingly complemented by remote sensing, drones, and machine learning to expand spatial coverage and improve data processing. Machine learning supports species identification across taxa through deep learning and other methods, underpinned by robust validation protocols. Frameworks such as Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) standardize data collection and interpretation, enabling hypothesis-driven monitoring and global synthesis. Computer vision models (e.g., YOLO, Mask R-CNN) and transfer learning further facilitate species identification required by EBVs. Citizen science initiatives such as iNaturalist and MINKA combine machine learning-assisted identification with expert validation, substantially broadening biodiversity monitoring. However, spatial biases and limitations persist, particularly for cryptic and deep-sea taxa. For invasive species, technologies like autonomous vehicles and eDNA sampling enhance early detection. The CIMPAL+ framework supports ecosystem-based management by assessing cumulative impacts of non-native species. Overall, these tools enhance monitoring efficiency and inclusivity but require ethical oversight, standardized protocols, and interdisciplinary collaboration to ensure scientific integrity and policy relevance.

The goose barnacle (Pollicipes pollicipes), a valuable intertidal species, is overexploited along the Basque coast, with biomass often far below levels predicted by wave energy models. A 22-year study (2002-2024) shows that while wave energy strongly correlates with barnacle abundance, illegal and unregulated harvesting has led to significant stock depletion. Some recovery has occurred since 2014, likely due to the increasing wave energy received. Comparison with regions like Galicia and Asturias highlights the effectiveness of comanagement systems involving fishers and authorities, with structured exploitation plans, quotas, and monitoring. In contrast, passive management in the Basque Country has proven insufficient. Only a few sites now exceed biomass thresholds. Lessons from Canada and Southwest Europe emphasize that sustainable recovery requires stricter enforcement, rotational harvesting, extended closures, and fisher participation. Without urgent, coordinated action, the long-term viability of goose barnacle populations in the Basque Country remains at risk.

Recent developments of data-driven standardized sampling tools have reduced knowledge gaps on benthic biodiversity and larval dispersal patterns. Here, we present a new application to estimate benthic spatial biodiversity patterns and evaluate potential larval dispersal from nearshore coast to the pelagic environment. To do so, we combined DNA metabarcoding and imagery on Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) deployed in pelagic and nearshore benthic systems across the Bay of Biscay's Basque Coast. Results reveal a remarkably lower biodiversity in pelagic relative to benthic ARMS as well as strong spatial patterns in community composition with the pelagic ARMS greatly differing to the benthic ones according to both metabarcoding (ANOSIM R = 0.82; p = 0.002) and image analysis (ANOSIM R = 0.87; p = 0.001). We also show that a large portion of the larvae inhabiting the pelagic domain (83.5%) probably originates from benthic habitats, while the benthic community shared across pelagic and benthic habitats is considerably lower (24.9%). Further, we also analyzed which benthic species successfully use the pelagic environment to disperse across the ocean from nearshore coast, and found that the unique benthic taxa inhabiting the pelagic ARMS consist of organisms with typically larger dispersal distances relative to strictly sessile taxa with direct larvae development found only in rock-attached benthic ARMS. Overall, these findings suggest that the benthic system acts as population source delivering species towards a less diverse pelagic domain. Taken together, this novel application of ARMS deployed in pelagic systems has the potential to identify the often overlooked yet critically important benthic community structure, as well as to unveil how dispersal pathways across benthic and pelagic habitats can shape biodiversity patterns of coastal ecosystems.

Current modeling practices for social-ecological systems (SES) are often qualitative and use causal loop diagrams (CLDs), as these models promote an evaluation of the systems loops and variable connectivity. Our literature review demonstrated that quality assurance of these models often lacks a consistent validation procedure. Therefore, a guide to improving the validation of qualitative models is presented. The presumed utility protocol is a multi-dimensional protocol with 26 criteria, organized into four dimensions, designed to assess specific parts of the modeling process and provide recommendations for improvement. This protocol was applied to three demonstration cases, located in the Arctic Northeast Atlantic Ocean, Macaronesia, and the Tuscan archipelago. The “Specific Model Tests” dimension, which focuses on the structure of the model, revealed positive evaluations of its structure, boundaries, and capacity to be scaled up. “Guidelines and Processes”, which focuses on the meaning and representativeness of the process, showed positive results regarding purpose, usefulness, presentation, and meaningfulness. “Policy Insights and Spillovers”, a dimension focused on the policy recommendations, revealed a high number of “not apply”, indicating that several criteria are too advanced for the status of the models tested. The “Administrative, Review, and Overview” dimension, which focused on the managerial overview, showed the models needed improvement in the documentation and replicability, while time and cost constraints were positively evaluated. The presumed utility protocol has shown to be a useful tool providing quantitative and qualitative evaluations for an intermediate evaluation of the model-building process, helping to substantiate confidence, with recommendations for improvements and applications elsewhere.

ABSTRACT The European Union (EU) established the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) to achieve good environmental status (GES) in European seas through an ecosystem‐based approach to management. EU Member States implementing the MSFD must assess the environmental status of their marine waters, as well as the human pressures and impacts affecting them. The MSFD follows a 6‐year cycle, with assessments made based on 11 descriptors linked to specific pressure, state and impact‐related criteria. Member States assessments should determine the extent to which GES is achieved. However, for coherent management of EU seas, comparable assessments across Member States and EU‐wide overview of the status and MSFD progress are essential. This study developed pressure, state, and impact indices, by integrating available MSFD data reported by EU Member States. For the first time, MSFD data across all descriptors have been integrated to produce a European regional assessment. Findings indicate that most European regions are far from demonstrating GES, suffering from intense pressures and impacts. Significant knowledge gaps were identified, particularly in the eastern Mediterranean. The findings highlight the urgent need for enhanced ecological monitoring and setting environmental targets to improve the dire state of European seas, advocating for stronger regional cooperation and standardized methodologies.

Within the Water Framework Directive, the assessment of the hydromorphological quality of water bodies is relevant in the determination of their ecological status, and in the designation of heavily modified water bodies. Based on the Hydromorphological Quality Index (HQI) developed for Ireland, this work presents an adaptation of the approach applied to the transitional and coastal waters in the Basque Country, for the last consecutive 6-year periods (2011-2016 and 2017-2022). The proposed methodology determines the overall quality (HQI5), and allows the morphological (HQI.) and hydrodynamic regime (HQIh) components to be assessed separately. Coastal water bodies showed a 'Good' or 'High' overall quality, while for most of the transitional water bodies it was 'Moderate', except for Nerbioi interior, with `Poor' quality in 2011-2016, and Oka Exterior and Deba, with 'Good' quality in both periods. The approach is consistent with previous expert judgment assessments and could be useful in designing restoration scenarios.

Increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have triggered ocean acidification over the past decades in the global ocean. However, regional efforts of pH monitoring across the southern Bay of Biscay's Basque coast remain elusive, with only a few short-term studies limited to the ocean's surface. Here we examine pH trends over time across the Basque coast using 21733 observations of long-term data collected during 2002-2022 with quarterly CTD casts from surface down to 100 m at three coastal sites. Results revealed significant pH decreases over time in all depth layers (0.5-100 m) at the three coastal sites (0.022-0.041 units decade(-1)), presumably driven by the global increase of atmospheric CO2. Across depth, observed pH trends also showed significantly higher ocean acidification rates with depth. Seasonally, observed pH changes ranged from wintertime highs of 8.18 +/- 0.07 to summertime lows of 8.14 +/- 0.05, with a mean seasonal amplitude of about similar to 0.04 pH units. The observed pH seasonality and vertical patterns appeared to be tied to the combined effect of environmental factors alongside the development of the thermocline as well as to differences in the biological activity across the water column. Taken together, these findings highlight the importance of pH monitoring in coastal areas and warn on the effect of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems and the services they provide to society.

The so-called ten-tenets were proposed over a decade ago to indicate actions to achieve sustainable and successful marine management. These indicated that marine management actions should be Ecologically sustainable, Technologically feasible, Economically viable, Socially tolerable/desirable, Legally defensible, Administratively achievable, Politically expedient, Ethically defensible/morally correct, Culturally inclusive and Effectively communicable. These concepts are revisited here to show a continuum from an Ecosystem-Based Approach (EBA, setting the priorities and polices), to Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM, operationalising the approach by management and governance) and then using tools, including technological and economic instruments, now termed Ecosystem-Based Technical Measures (EBTM). This shows the way the tenets overlap while the underlying definitions still hold for holistic marine management and are valuable in prioritising marine management actions. We emphasise that the tenets for the overarching ecological and communication aspects should be weighted differently but that taken together all other tenets would be weighted equally although they could have a weighting depending on their user. For example, the economic tenet may be weighted highly in economically-challenging times and the cultural tenet in areas with indigenous peoples.