Addressing aquatic pollution and biodiversity loss through nature positive solutions from source to sea

Expected Outcome:

This topic aims at directly engaging and supporting public authorities and other relevant socio-economic actors (e.g. farmers, landowners, aquaculture producers, tourist operators, fishers, businesses, water management authorities) in addressing aquatic pollution and biodiversity loss, thereby demonstrating and accelerating the transitions needed for achieving one or several objectives of the Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters”. The direct involvement of relevant authorities and stakeholders in the consortium is strongly encouraged.

Project results are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes:

• Member States and Associated Countries are provided with cost-effective solutions to reach the targets of the Water Framework and the Marine Strategy Framework directives, the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, and the EU strategy for sustainable chemicals and are enabled to take action to implement the targets of the EU biodiversity, climate adaptation and water resilience strategies for 2030 and the EU zero pollution action plan;
• National, regional and local authorities and other relevant stakeholders have access to and are supported in deploying cost-effective, adaptative and nature-positive solutions to remediate and reduce pollution from nutrients, chemicals, plastics and microplastics from source to sea, while protecting and restoring the capacity of ecosystems to provide services and adapt to climate change impacts;
• Measurable, quantifiable, verifiable and ambitious progress towards reaching one or several interlinked objectives and targets of the Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030”, as set out in the Mission Implementation Plan^[1] through implementing effective and well-managed place-based and people-centred actions;
• Public and private investment is encouraged and mobilised to implement nature-positive solutions for addressing pollution in the ocean and waters.

Scope:

Pollution of freshwater and marine environments from nutrients, chemicals and plastics including microplastics poses proven risks to human and environmental health. As the latest assessments of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and Water Framework Directive have shown, large parts of Europe’s groundwater bodies, rivers, lakes, coastal, transitional and marine waters have not reached good ecological or good environmental status and often exceed regulatory threshold levels set to avoid potential risk to human health and the environment. In addition, land and sea uses changes as well as increasing climate change impacts are cumulative drivers of biodiversity erosion and of ecosystems services in the continuum from watershed to coastal and marine ecosystems.

Nature-positive approaches and solutions are particularly promising to address both aquatic pollution and biodiversity loss, such as Nature-based Solutions (NbS)^[2], including protection and restoration measures, hybrid NbS, bioremediation (with plants or other organisms), regenerative practices and methods (e.g. via the farming of bivalve molluscs and algae), agro-ecological measures, management measures across biomes including for mobile and migratory species, technologies or other relevant innovation.

Proposals should address all the following issues:

• Based on a sound understanding of the main pollution sources and the connectivity between watersheds, coastal and marine ecosystems, identify, assess and make available to stakeholders the most regionally relevant and effective nature-positive solutions and combinations thereof to address pollution and biodiversity loss, considering their relevance under future climate and biodiversity scenarios;
• Test and upscale systemic and innovative combinations of nature-positive approaches, solutions and new technologies to reduce nutrient, chemical, plastic including microplastic pollution, considering together functionally connected freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems;
• Conduct demonstration activities in at least 4 sites from source to sea covering the most relevant socio-ecological systems in one of the Mission basin-scale lighthouses, with direct and strong involvement of public bodies and other relevant socio-economic stakeholders to ensure their support for implementing, maintaining and financing nature-positive solutions in their territories. The scale and range of the site(s) for demonstration activities should be ecologically relevant and impactful for achieving the Mission 2030 objectives;
• Monitor pollution levels in each demonstration site to assess the impact and contribution of the activities towards the Mission objectives and targets, including removal rates, retention capacities, ecosystem responses and modelling techniques, to ensure monitoring of the activities and inform adaptive management. Projects should design monitoring strategies that extend beyond the project duration, contributing to long-term datasets crucial for assessing cumulative impacts, ecosystem recovery trajectories and informing future interventions. The monitoring should make use of, adapt or exploit relevant sensing and modelling tools, EU digital infrastructures, such as the EU Digital Twin Ocean, Copernicus and EMODnet;
• Quantify and forecast the ecosystem services provided by implementing nature-positive solutions (e.g. pollution reduction, ecosystems services restored) and the resulting societal goods and benefits;
• Assess the economic viability, potential for scale-up, and societal acceptance of integrated approaches for the management of connected ecosystems from source to sea and promote the development of new business models to implement these approaches.

Each proposal should address only one basin / Mission “lighthouse”, which should be explicitly stated in the proposal, i.e.: 1. Atlantic and Arctic Sea basin or 2. Mediterranean Sea basin or 3. Baltic and North Sea basin or 4. Danube River basin including the Black Sea. Activities should be tailored to address regional/sea basin specificities. The basins / Mission “lighthouses” include the river basins flowing into the respective sea basins.

Projects should build on the best available actionable knowledge, methods and innovations notably from the results of previous national and EU projects.

Competent authorities and other stakeholders participating in the project are encouraged to pool and enhance synergies^[3] with other sources of funding (e.g. structural, cohesion funds such as ERDF, or LIFE) for implementing and deploying innovative solutions.

Projects are expected to show a significant replication potential by directly involving relevant authorities and stakeholders, by promoting collaborations between relevant authorities and other stakeholders facing similar challenges, and by identifying further stakeholders that could replicate the proposed solutions and approaches. Actions plans and roadmaps needed for the replication and up-scale of the solutions should be drawn up by the end of the projects.

Projects are expected to work with and engage at least 4 ‘associated regions’ (represented by local/regional authorities/public bodies) to show the effectiveness of solutions to increase resilience and develop a replication plan for its uptake in an ‘associated region’ and build capacity at local level. Beneficiaries may therefore provide Financial Support to Third Parties (see the Specific Conditions table for this topic). Projects should (1) proactively reach out to the 'associated regions' to enable them to follow closely the project’s activities, (2) continuously share their outcomes and knowledge with those ‘associated regions’ and (3) provide them with technical assistance to build capacity and to implement in their territory the approach they developed.

Proposals should establish operational links and cooperate with the relevant Lighthouse CSAs and the Mission Implementation Platform, notably to contribute to tracking progress towards the objectives of the Mission and coordination of all relevant implementation activities in the lighthouse basin.

This action supports the follow-up to the July 2023 Communication on EU Missions assessment.

[1] See section 1.2. of the Mission Ocean and Waters Implementation Plan: https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-09/ocean_and_waters_implementation_plan_for_publication.pdf

[2] “Solutions that are inspired and supported by nature, which are cost-effective, simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits and help build resilience. Such solutions bring more, and more diverse, nature and natural features and processes into cities, landscapes and seascapes, through locally adapted, resource-efficient and systemic interventions.” Nature-based solutions - European Commission

[3] C(2022) 4747 final