Integrative assessment of marine systems training course: The Ecosystem Approach in practiceInternal

The main objective of this course was to give an overview of the integrative assessment to ocean and coastal management using an ecosystem approach. This course addressed technical developments or methodological issues such as those linked to the different methods needed to assess the marine ecosystem status in an integrative way, approaches needed to aggregate information at multiple scales or new monitoring methods needed to get cost effective tools to assess the status of marine ecosystems. With 92 attendees from 23 countries, including PhD students, post-doc students, researchers in marine assessment, stakeholders, marine managers, and NGO members, this event represented a positive networking role.

The attendees acquired new knowledge on recent trends in marine research related to management of our oceans. Efforts were made to be present in the media, on the internet, press and radio. The survey at the end showed a high level of satisfaction with the course, and resulted in the identification of priority and emerging fields and methodologies to be brought together in a position paper. This paper was published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

Borja, A. et al. (2016) Overview of Integrative Assessment of Marine Systems: The Ecosystem Approach in Practice. Frontiers in Marine Science. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2016.00020