The high ecological value of seagrass meadows, a key element for the conservation of marine ecosystems, has led the Institut d’Ecologia Litoral de El Campello to launch a project to inventory the seagrass meadows of the Spanish coast.

This is an initiative that has had the collaboration of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Biodiversity Foundation, as well as other regional administrations, and which will give rise to the ‘Atlas of the seagrass meadows of Spain’.

Underwater meadows are an essential element that safeguards marine ecosystems from constant threats from man, transformations produced by illegal fishing, port constructions or pollution that are a threat to them. This is the case, for example, in the posidonia meadow, a plant characteristic of the Mediterranean Sea that has a high ecological value, also considered an important biological indicator of water quality.

For these reasons, the Institut d’Ecologia Litoral de El Campello has proposed this inventory as the first step in the development of actions aimed at the conservation of the meadows, as well as their effective management. In this sense, the mapped seagrass meadows will be inventoried, in addition to carrying out detailed information on their distribution, condition, and condition. Actions that will be transferred to the ‘Atlas of the seagrass meadows of Spain’, an online publication that can be consulted and used as a tool for the definition of conservation actions.