Mike Elliott delivers a lecture at MFRI

Dr. Mike Elliott, Professor at the Institute of Estuarine and Coastal Studies, University of Hull (UK), will give a lecture at MFRI on October 11. The lecture will be held in the 1st floor auditorium at Skúlagata 4, and will commence at 1 pm.

Abstract

Managing marine areas to protect their natural functioning while delivering societal benefits

This presentation will show how the natural and social sciences are needed to achieve the one big idea in marine management which is ‘how to protect and maintain ecological structure and functioning while at the same time deliver ecosystem services and societal benefits’. Ecosystem services start from the natural ecosystem structure and functioning and cover the regulating, provisioning, supporting and cultural aspects. Societal benefits then can be gathered from the ecosystem services but only after we put in time, energy, finance and skills. Hence, achieving a sustainable and successful estuarine and marine management requires all environmental and socio-economic aspects to be considered. The seas, estuaries and coasts have long been affected by hazards and risks causing degradation which then needs to be restored or compensated. A hazard and risk typology is used to show pressures which emanate from inside the managed system (termed endogenic managed pressures) and outside the managed system (termed unmanaged exogenic pressures – these include climate change). This involves fulfilling the so-called 10-tenets which inter alia includes a plethora of environmental legislation and many statutory organisations as well as economic constraints. The presentation includes global examples of successes and failures including ecoengineering and ecohydrology principles to achieve sustainable outcomes; for example, the latter includes restoring and creating habitats to give wins for human safety, the economy and ecology. 

About Dr. Elliott

Mike is the Professor of Estuarine and Coastal Sciences at the University of Hull, UK and was Director of IECS from 1996-2017(http://www.hull.ac.uk/iecs). He is a marine biologist with a wide experience and interests and his teaching, research, advisory and consultancy includes estuarine and marine ecology, policy, governance and management. Mike has published widely, co-authoring/co-editing 18 books/proceedings and >270 scientific publications. This includes co-authoring 'The Estuarine Ecosystem: ecology, threats and management' (with DS McLusky, OUP, 2004), 'Ecology of Marine Sediments: science to management' (with JS Gray, OUP, 2009), and ‘Estuarine Ecohydrology: an introduction’ (with E Wolanski, Elsevier, 2015) and as a volume editor and contributor to the Treatise on Estuarine & Coastal Science (Eds.-In-Chief - E Wolanski & DS McLusky, Elsevier). He has advised on many environmental matters for academia, industry, government and statutory bodies worldwide. Mike is a past-President of the international Estuarine & Coastal Sciences Association (ECSA) and is a Co-Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Estuarine, Coastal & Shelf Science; he has Adjunct Professor and Research positions at Murdoch University (Perth), Klaipeda University (Lithuania), the University of Palermo (Italy), Xiamen University (China) and the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity. He was awarded Laureate of the Honorary Winberg Medal 2014 of the Russian Hydrobiological Academic Society. He is also a member of several national and international committees linking marine science to policy.