The F-ECTS project looked at the complicated feedback and feed-forward loops that link the establishment and success of phytobenthic communities with water quality and physical oceanographic parameters. A focus of the project was the prediction of the evolution of phytobenthic ecosystems and their reactions to anthropogenic and climatic disturbances (Bergamasco et al., 2003).

The functioning of intertidal systems reflects changes in the coastal zone in general. The main organisms underpinning this functioning are the algae and seagrasses, which support the whole food web, such that changes to intertidal ecosystems greatly influence our natural environment and coastal zone economies. HIMOM aims to systematically combine methods, the Hierarchical Monitoring Methods, to determine the status and changes in that system. By providing a conceptual framework that accommodates both simple ground measurements and remote sensing of basin-scale systems, the project lays the foundation for the ongoing investigation of long term changes.

Similarly, the focus of KEYCOP was the investigation and modelling of key processes that affect the fluxes and cycling of carbon, nutrients and other trace substances, generally on a small scale, but under different physical (stratification) and chemical conditions. An understanding of the fundamentals of carbon biogeochemistry is an important building-block in climate change science. The potential value of KEYCOP lies in the fact that the local process modelling in the study has been designed to be integrated into large-scale models, and an important contribution is its data management protocols that were designed with interconnectivity in mind. Like MMS2000+, this project can link in with global earth observation information networks that contribute to the detection of climate change and its impacts.

METROMED studied and modelled the key processes driving the exchange and storage of particulate material and the biogeochemical cycles in the coastal zone. The data are also useful as initial or boundary/validation conditions for hydrodynamic models such as those used in regional climate impacts studies. A key contribution is the linking of both hydrographic conditions and meteorological forcing in the transport and dispersion processes.

PHASE researchers also addressed the interactions between physical forcing functions (e.g. wind, solar energy and tidal energy) and biogeochemical fluxes in shallow coastal waters (Figure 2(a)). The importance of physical forcing through the water column (with high frequency variability) on the biogeochemical processes in shallow coastal waters and the benthos was very poorly understood, and this project therefore contributes significantly to the understanding of climatic impacts (see Serra et al., 2003) for a consideration of the comparative effect of weather extremes. Again, a further useful contribution is its aim to upscale from the processes studied to a general integrated coastal zone model.