About the project
Marine Caves and Reefs in Greece
Advancing monitoring, assessment, and restoration prioritization across the Greek seas.
The acceleration of human impacts, including pollution, overfishing, destructive coastal practices, and biological invasions, coupled with climate-induced thermal anomalies, is driving widespread degradation of vital Mediterranean marine ecosystems. Shallow and deep rocky reefs are shifting from complex macroalgal canopies to impoverished, simple turf communities, while marine caves, which function as unique biodiversity reservoirs, face severe quality declines along sharp environmental gradients.
48
months of research
€300k
project budget
700+
marine caves in Greece
2
seas surveyed: Aegean & Ionian
A multidisciplinary framework
To confront these challenges, CaRe-GR brings together a research framework hosted at the University of the Aegean, Department of Marine Sciences, spanning community ecology, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, systematic conservation planning, and citizen science. Over a 48-month timeline and with a €300k budget, the project is explicitly designed to advance ocean observation capabilities in Greek territorial waters.
Three core objectives
- Develop next-generation monitoring workflows. Innovating affordable, smart, user-friendly tools that combine high-resolution satellite observation with AI-driven automated image analysis to vastly optimise data collection speed and interpretation.
- Empower monitoring via stakeholder and citizen engagement. Launching a national citizen-science initiative with standardised protocols for SCUBA divers, training volunteer divers, oceanography graduates and regional stakeholders to build long-term monitoring networks.
- Support policy implementation and action planning. Delivering national baseline maps of reef and cave distribution and status, paired with spatial optimisation models to prioritise cost-effective restoration where it yields the maximum ecological return.
Aligned with EU & Mediterranean policy
Evidence for marine restoration in Greece
- EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030
- Marine Strategy Framework Directive
- Barcelona Convention IMAP
- EU Nature Restoration Law