REDRESS aims to provide a key contribution to the EU commitments towards restoring degraded ecosystems, especially in the deep sea. REDRESS will provide solutions to prioritize future restoration actions, extend deep-sea restoration to previously neglected habitat types, and demonstrate the feasibility, potential, and value for success of deep-sea ecosystem restoration. The project will focus on habitats that have great potential to contribute to carbon sequestration and climate mitigation but have been degraded by deep-sea fishing, especially trawling. Specifically, we will study vulnerable marine ecosystems, including sea pens and bamboo corals on soft sediments, coral gardens, cold-water coral reefs, sponge fields, and cold seeps. REDRESS will map degraded deep-sea habitats and identify habitat refugia to prioritize restoration efforts that will adapt to future scenarios of climate change. To adopt and adapt cutting-edge solutions for both restoration interventions and monitoring, REDRESS will make a significant technological investment and will benefit from a relevant ship time by in-kind contribution (136 days). REDRESS will offer nature-based solutions to public authorities and operators to advance ecosystem restoration in the deep sea. Building on the MERCES experience, REDRESS will go beyond the state of art, either developing new methodologies, using sophisticated technologies, defining success indicators, and expanding the target habitats also to cold seeps. The results will enable a significant advancement in the EU's marine restoration strategy. The project will also provide socio-economic data, protocols, and tools to plan, and upscale restoration interventions in deep-sea habitats. REDRESS will provide novel insights into the advantages and limits of active vs passive deep-sea restoration, and related cost-benefit analysis in different deep-sea habitats supporting policies and decision makers in the future application of the Nature Restoration Law.

The project MERCES is focused on the restoration of different degraded marine habitats, with the aim of: 1) assessing the potential of different technologies and approaches; 2) quantifying the returns in terms of ecosystems services and their socio-economic impacts; 3) defining the legal-policy and governance frameworks needed to optimize the effectiveness of the different restoration approaches. Specific aims include: a) improving existing, and developing new, restoration actions of degraded marine habitats; b) increasing the adaptation of EU degraded marine habitats to global change; c) enhancing marine ecosystem resilience and services; d) conducting cost-benefit analyses for marine restoration measures; e) creating new industrial targets and opportunities. To achieve these objectives MERCES created a multi-disciplinary consortium with skills in marine ecology, restoration, law, policy and governance, socio-economics, knowledge transfer, dissemination and communication. MERCES will start from the inventory of EU degraded marine habitats (WP1), conduct pilot restoration experiments (WP2, WP3, WP4), assess the effects of restoration on ecosystem services (WP5). The legal, policy and governance outputs will make effective the potential of marine restoration (WP6) and one dedicated WP will assess the socio-economic returns of marine ecosystems’ restoration (WP7). The transfer of knowledge and the links with the industrial stakeholders will be the focus of WP8. The results of MERCES will be disseminated to the widest audience (WP9). The project will be managed through a dedicated management office (WP10). MERCES will contribute to the Blue Growth by: i) improving the EU scientific knowledge on marine restoration, ii) contributing to EU Marine Directives; iii) implementing the Restoration Agenda, iv) enhancing the industrial capacity in this field, v) increasing the competitiveness of EU in the world market of restoration, and vi) offering new employment opportunities.