The project concerns two lagoonal ecosystems El Meleh (Tunisia) and Nador (Morocco). They are protected coastal zones, Nador is classified as a site of biological and ecological interest with fishery activity, El Meleh is foreseen to get the same status of interest in order to acquire a tourist economical interest. However, environmental stresses due to old day saline extraction and waste water station releases in El Meleh, threaten the cleanliness of the ecosystem and compromise their ecological status and consequent economical interest. In Nador present fishery activity, urban and agricultural releases threaten its cleanliness and urban developments may lead to the closing of the lagoon which compromises the fishery activity and may consequently give rise to unemployment.
The overall objectives of the project are:
- to understand the natural variations in lagoon ecosystem functioning
- to define the parameters inducing alterations due to anthropogenic activity
- to contribute to the safeguarding of their environmental cleanliness, and finally
- to contribute to the development of sustainable long-term management strategies at a regional scale.
Specific Scientific and Technological Objectives
They are:
1. Improve the knowledge of naturally occurring mechanisms of lagoon ecosystems functioning at different scales: starting from the three entities (near coast, reef, lagoon itself) which are the lagoon geosystem, down to the three geobodies (soils, sediments, water). Different approaches are used: geomorphology, hydrogeology and sedimentology. The aim is to get an analysis of morphodynamic and hydrogeological processes with help of:
- the characterisation of transport processes and modelling the water circulations
- the reconstitution of the sedimentary facies and the geometry of the lagoons and the barrier island sedimentary bodies; and
- the study of the tectonic, climatic and eustatic influence on the hydrodynamic processes and sediment flows from early Quaternary up to the present.
2. Understand the interaction of pollutants with geobodies studying the transport pathways and pollutant uptake by organic or mineral species and the assimilation of pollutants by benthic organisms. Relevant aspects of water and sediment geochemistry, sediment mineralogy, selective extraction geochemistry and ecology will be used to:
- quantify the rate of metal contamination in sediments and lagoon waters
- value the marine and continental polluting elements impact on the microfauna (foraminifera and ostracods)
- analyze the factors governing the pollutants distribution
- delineate the pollution vulnerable regions and predict the spatial and temporal polluting patterns
- assess the risk of sanding up as well as its impact on the environment.
3. Study the interaction of human activity on the lagoon ecosystem. The specific scientific objective is to built up the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the fishery (in Morocco), and the LCA of the waste discharges in Tunisia. LCA is a tool for environmental impact assessment of an anthropogenic activity from the production of raw materials to the disposal of the final waste products. Starting from an initial inventory analysis (of materials and energy flows), the extent of potential environmental impacts is assessed, including the economic aspect (impact cost). Finally, the interpretation stage is designed to help take a political decision by arbitration between environmental, technical and economical constraints. The coupling of the Life Cycle Assessment with a Geographical Information System will guide the formulation of recommendations and strategies for sustainable development.
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