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Observed and Simulated Trophic Index (TRIX) Values for the Adriatic Sea Basin

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Observed and Simulated Trophic Index (TRIX) Values for the Adriatic Sea Basin Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2043–2054, 2016 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2043/2016/ doi:10.5194/nhess-16-2043-2016 © Author(s) 2016. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Observed and simulated trophic index (TRIX) values for the Adriatic Sea basin Emanuela Fiori1,2,3, Marco Zavatarelli1,2, Nadia Pinardi1,4, Cristina Mazziotti3, and Carla Rita Ferrari3 1Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia (DIFA) University of Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat, 6/2, 40127 Bologna, Italy 2Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Scienze dal Mare, Piazzale Flaminio 9, 00195 Rome, Italy 3Agenzia Regionale Prevenzione Ambiente Energia (ARPAE) dell’Emilia-Romagna, Struttura Oceanografica Daphne, Viale Vespucci, 2, 47042 Cesenatico (FC), Italy 4Centro EuroMediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, Lecce, Italy Correspondence to: Emanuela Fiori (e.fi[email protected]) Received: 2 March 2016 – Published in Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss.: 9 March 2016 Revised: 9 August 2016 – Accepted: 11 August 2016 – Published: 2 September 2016 Abstract. The main scope of the Marine Strategy Framework in the marine food web connected to the seawater enrichment Directive is to achieve good environmental status (GES) of by nutrients, which can modify the carbon pathways and ex- the EU’s marine waters by 2020, in order to protect the ma- cessive oxygen consumption (Ferreira et al., 2011; Vollen- rine environment more effectively. The trophic index (TRIX) weider et al., 1992). was developed by Vollenweider in 1998 for the coastal area In response to these pressures, the Marine Strategy Frame- of Emilia-Romagna (northern Adriatic Sea) and was used work Directive (MSFD, 2008/56/EC) explicitly considers eu- by the Italian legislation to characterize the trophic state of trophication descriptors as key to determining the good envi- coastal waters. ronmental status (GES) of European coastal waters. The EU We compared the TRIX index calculated from in situ data MSFD addresses the overall state of the marine environment (“in situ TRIX”) with the corresponding index simulated utilizing a DPSIR (driver, pressure, state, impact, response) with a coupled physics and biogeochemical numerical model conceptual approach and considering eutrophication as an (“model TRIX”) implemented in the overall Adriatic Sea. important process that can alter the coastal waters’ GES. A The comparison between in situ and simulated data was car- synthetic indicator of the environmental state of the coastal ried out for a data time series on the Emilia-Romagna coastal ocean with respect to the eutrophication processes, integrat- strip. This study shows the compatibility of the model with ing elements of the DPSIR methodology, is therefore very the in situ TRIX and the importance of the length of the useful to provide an objective assessment of the environmen- time series in order to get robust index estimates. The model tal state. Furthermore, it provides elements for the implemen- TRIX is finally calculated for the whole Adriatic Sea, show- tation of an ecosystem-based strategy for the achievement ing trophic index differences across the Adriatic coastal ar- and maintenance of GES. The MSFD underlines the need to eas. implement an ecosystem-based approach to determine all the pressures affecting the marine environment relative to GES. Indicators therefore need to be developed to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the quality of the marine environment. 1 Introduction Marine ecosystems present high levels of complexity; hence composite indicators are needed to support monitoring pro- Marine habitats are subject to increasing pressures (as nu- grams and reduce complexity for early-warning systems. trient discharges, eutrophication) due to agriculture, indus- Eutrophication assessment indicators should use multi- try, tourism, fishing, and aquaculture. The eutrophication of variate water column state variables, integrating physical- coastal waters is considered to be one of the greatest threats chemical and biological variables. The trophic index (TRIX) to the health of marine ecosystems. It is described as a change Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 2044 E. Fiori et al.: Trophic index (TRIX) values for the Adriatic Sea basin is a eutrophication index proposed by Vollenweider et al. (1998) in order to characterize the trophic state of ma- rine waters along the Emilia-Romagna coastal region (north- western Adriatic Sea). TRIX is defined by four state vari- ables, which are strongly correlated with primary production: chlorophyll a, oxygen, dissolved inorganic nitrogen, and to- tal phosphorous. TRIX was integrated into Italian law for the monitoring of the coastal marine environment status (D.L. 260/2010, Table 4.3.2/c). TRIX covers a wide range of trophic conditions from olig- otrophy to eutrophy, and it has been applied to coastal ma- rine waters in several European seas: the Adriatic Sea and the Tyrrhenian Sea (Giovanardi and Vollenweider, 2004), the Black Sea (Kovalova and Medinets, 2012; Baytut, 2010; Dyatlov et al., 2010; Medinets et al., 2010; Moncheva and Doncheva, 2000; Moncheva et al., 2002; Zaika, 2003), the eastern Mediterranean Sea (Tugrul et al., 2011), the Aegean Sea (Yucel-Gier et al., 2011), the Marmara Sea (Balkis et al., 2012), the Caspian Sea (Shahrban and Etemad-Shahidi, 2010), the Mar Menor (Salas et al., 2008), the Persian Gulf (Zoriasatein et al., 2013), and the Gulf of Finland (Vaschetta et al., 2008). In this paper we compare “in situ TRIX” with model sim- Figure 1. Emilia-Romagna coastal and shelf region monitored by ulations for long data series in different coastal and open- ARPAE-Daphne: 21 stations, organized along eight transects (Lido Volano, Porto Garibaldi, Casalborsetti, Ravenna, Lido Adriano, Ce- ocean areas. The specific objectives of our work are (1) to senatico, Rimini, and Cattolica) from 500 m to 10 km distance from adapt the TRIX generic relation to numerical ecosystem the coast. The Porto Garibaldi and Cesenatico transects enclose also model simulation data, (2) to validate the “model TRIX” with two stations situated 20 km offshore. The study area is divided into in situ data in different areas and time series, and (3) to apply three areas (A, B, and C) based on hydrological and trophic con- the TRIX generic equation to other coastal and open-ocean ditions. The grey shaded areas indicate the model grid points from areas in the entire Adriatic Sea. which model data were extracted to carry out the model TRIX. The final results of this paper could be used as a criterion to classify the marine ecosystem (D.L. 260/2010), providing class boundaries expressed as TRIX units (Table 4.3.2./c). 1981–2013) covering the whole of the Emilia-Romagna Furthermore, it is shown that the ecosystem simulations can coastal region. The location of the sampling stations is re- represent an important support for monitoring activities, al- ported in Fig. 1. lowing TRIX to be extended to larger areas where in situ The TRIX index is based on four state variables (n), sampling activities are difficult to implement. which are directly related to productivity: chlorophyll a Section 2 describes the TRIX equation and its calibration (Chl, mg m−3), oxygen as the absolute percentage deviation parameters for the model simulations. Section 3 illustrates from oxygen saturation (DO, %), dissolved inorganic nitro- the in situ and simulation model data used for the evaluation gen (DIN, mg m−3/, and total phosphorous (TP, mg m−3/. of TRIX and its calibration. Section 4 compares the in situ In particular, DIN D N-NO3 C N-NO2 C N-NH4 and DO D TRIX and model TRIX, and the sensitivity analysis of the j100 − Oxj, where Ox is the oxygen saturation. Each state calibration parameters. Section 5 shows how TRIX could be variable is scaled by the highest (Ui) and the lowest (Li) val- implemented for the whole Adriatic Sea region, and Sect. 6 ues in the data time series, and TRIX is defined as presents the discussion and conclusions. n k X .logMi − logLi/ TRIX D ; (1) n .logU − logL / iD1 i i 2 TRIX equation and parameterizations where k D 10 is another scaling factor; n is the number of The TRIX index was developed by Vollenweider et al. (1992) state variables considered; and Mi are the observed Chl, DO, using data collected between 1982 and 1993 by the “Daphne” DIN, and TP values. oceanographic division of the Emilia-Romagna Regional Vollenweider et al. (1998) further simplified the TRIX for- Environmental Protection Agency (hereafter referred to as mula by assuming (on the basis of the data used) that the dif- ARPAE-Daphne). Since 1971 ARPAE-Daphne has been car- ference (logUi −logLi) was equal to 3 for all state variables. rying out a monitoring program (Regione Emilia-Romagna, Therefore, considering k D 10, n D 4, and the specific log Li Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2043–2054, 2016 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2043/2016/ E. Fiori et al.: Trophic index (TRIX) values for the Adriatic Sea basin 2045 Table 1. Reference values of the trophic index (TRIX) and corresponding water quality and trophic conditions, developed from ARPAE- Daphne Emilia-Romagna (Rinaldi and Giovanardi, 2011). Conditions TRIX units Trophic state Water quality conditions Oligotrophic < 4 Elevated – Scarcely productive waters – Good water transparency – Absence of anomalous water colors – Absence of oxygen undersaturation in the bottom waters 4 5 Good – Moderately productive waters – Occasionally water turbidity – Occasionally anomalous water colors – Occasionally bottom
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