The Posidònia Activa citizen science project is being carried out on the seabed of the Catalan Coast, with the aim of mapping the seabed of unprotected areas to accurately locate and delimit the posidonia meadows, as well as studying the biodiversity associated with them. This will make it possible to locate on the map which areas are of the greatest biological importance, promoting new initiatives to avoid the reduction of these endemic ecosystems of the Mediterranean Sea.
Posidonia oceanica is an endemic marine phanerogam of the Mediterranean Sea with a great biological impact, since it’s a precursor of important marine ecosystems, it’s shelter and food of thousands of species, CO2 resrevoir, natural barrier that offers coastal protection against regression, favors the oxigenation of the sea, the maintenance of marine seabed and expels microplastics thnaks to the balls produced with the dry leaves. For these, and many other reasons, it is essential to preserve this species of phanerogam, currently in danger and with an advanced regression. This project began in 2020 with the mission of not leaving any marine space on the Catalan coast without sampling, to protect this sea grass, which provides us with almost 50% of the planet’s oxygen.
This study is carried out with volunteer divers and snorkelers, who help us to take the biological measures to observe the state of the prairies and to collect the necessary data that allow us to elaborate a map of marine species of the area and thus to study the most biologically important habitats of the studied municipalities.
The project aims to cover a new area of the Catalan Coast each year, as well as to carry out annual monitoring of all the prairies already mapped in the previous phases of POSIDÒNIA ACTIVA.
