Abstract
Managing coastal development requires a set of tools to adequately detect ecosystem and sediments degradation. Benthic indicators are often used to detect or assess disturbances, but while they may be very sensitive to the impact itself, the question is whether they can be used as a complementary tool for port managers to improve the environmental policy. The chapter is focused on environmental assessment of influence of Constanta and Mangalia ports’ activities on the macrobenthic diversity and population structure. Using the diversity and ecological quality indices as tools for quantifying the Good Environmental Status of the area situated in the proximity of the ports, our main results revealed a positive correlation between shifts occurred in macrobenthic population structure and distance to ports aquatorium. It showed also notably different temporal trends, indicating the high sensitivity to environmental pressures.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge support funded by the SEE Programme—TEN ECOPORT Project and EU FP7 HYPOX.
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Teaca, A., Begun, T., Muresan, M. (2015). Assessment of Soft-Bottom Communities and Ecological Quality Status Surrounding Constanta and Mangalia Ports (Black Sea). In: Stylios, C., Floqi, T., Marinski, J., Damiani, L. (eds) Sustainable Development of Sea-Corridors and Coastal Waters. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11385-2_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11385-2_7
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