From 24th to 26th of August a Workshop on PAs in transitional water ecosystems and wetlands took place in Curonian spit, Lithuania.
The meeting centered around finding the commonalities in the services that are being considered in the Lagoonal PAs within ECOPOTENTIAL. Each of the PAs made a presentation on the main services, pressures, and management practices being considered in their protected area. Subsequently, the data being used to monitor or evaluate the state of the system and potential capacity of the services was also proposed by each of the research group.
From this, commonalities were discovered and different models and possible applications of data sets were explored and shared within the group. We also looked into finding common functions and services in all of the systems which we could share information and investigation techniques into. The work accomplished has been brought to the WP9 workshop which has just finished in Sete, France where further work on these collaborations and commonalities was completed. There should be a preliminary summation of the ideas developed in these two sessions coming to light in the coming weeks and these discussion will serve as a stepping stone to greater collaboration between the PAs within this group.
The workshop also included an excursion around the Curonian Spit and Lagoon to see the services and ecotopes being discussed which further spurred direct discussion on the methods of monitoring and possible modelling of the system. This hands on experience allowed for greater insight into the PA and facilitated discussions on how current practices in the Lagoon compare to those taking place in the other PAs, most notably the Carmargue, Wadden Sea, Dutch Delta, and Danube Delta.
