Environmental Engineering Techniques to Restore Degraded Posidonia oceanica Meadows
1
Dipartimento di Chimica e Farmacia, Università di Sassari, Via Piandanna 4, 07100 Sassari, Italy
2
International School for Scientific Diving “Anna Proietti Zolla” (ISSD), P.le Italia, 55100 Lucca, Italy
3
Area Marina Protetta ”Capo Carbonara”, Via Roma 60, 09049 Villasimius, Italy
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Sebastiano Calvo
Water 2021, 13(5), 661; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13050661
Received: 19 January 2021
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Revised: 22 February 2021
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Accepted: 26 February 2021
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Published: 28 February 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Restore Degraded Marine Coastal Areas in the Mediterranean Sea)
Seagrass planting techniques have shown to be an effective tool for restoring degraded meadows and ecosystem function. In the Mediterranean Sea, most restoration efforts have been addressed to the endemic seagrass Posidonia oceanica, but cost-benefit analyses have shown unpromising results. This study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of environmental engineering techniques generally employed in terrestrial systems to restore the P. oceanica meadows: two different restoration efforts were considered, either exploring non-degradable mats or, for the first time, degradable mats. Both of them provided encouraging results, as the loss of transplanting plots was null or very low and the survival of cuttings stabilized to about 50%. Data collected are to be considered positive as the survived cuttings are enough to allow the future spread of the patches. The utilized techniques provided a cost-effective restoration tool likely affordable for large-scale projects, as the methods allowed to set up a wide bottom surface to restore in a relatively short time without any particular expensive device. Moreover, the mats, comparing with other anchoring methods, enhanced the colonization of other organisms such as macroalgae and sessile invertebrates, contributing to generate a natural habitat.
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Keywords:
degradable mesh; environmental engineering techniques; Posidonia oceanica; restoration; seagrass
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
MDPI and ACS Style
Piazzi, L.; Acunto, S.; Frau, F.; Atzori, F.; Cinti, M.F.; Leone, L.; Ceccherelli, G. Environmental Engineering Techniques to Restore Degraded Posidonia oceanica Meadows. Water 2021, 13, 661. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13050661
AMA Style
Piazzi L, Acunto S, Frau F, Atzori F, Cinti MF, Leone L, Ceccherelli G. Environmental Engineering Techniques to Restore Degraded Posidonia oceanica Meadows. Water. 2021; 13(5):661. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13050661
Chicago/Turabian StylePiazzi, Luigi, Stefano Acunto, Francesca Frau, Fabrizio Atzori, Maria Francesca Cinti, Laura Leone, and Giulia Ceccherelli. 2021. "Environmental Engineering Techniques to Restore Degraded Posidonia oceanica Meadows" Water 13, no. 5: 661. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13050661
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