Feasibility Study of the Application of the LOICZ Budget to the Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is an important regional EU sea and often used to assess the impacts of global change on the environment, due to its practically enclosed character. As most of the northern part is bordered by the EU, it is also of interest in the evaluation of the environmental and economic impact of the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive and related environmental legislation. For this purpose, the feasibility to carry out a budget approach, developed in LOICZ (Land Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone) project has been analyzed. The activities carried out allow to conclude that all budget components can be reliably estimated and such budget correctly set up. In particular: estimates for precipitation and evaporation of the Mediterranean Sea can be obtained from ECMWF; other sources for estimates of such variables are available, and in a further implementation of this work a comparison between estimate sets will be carried out; estimates of annual flow and nutrient output to the Mediterranean Sea as required by the LOICZ budget can be obtained via the setting up of the AVGWLF model, with reasonable operating expense (time and effort) and with acceptable assumptions made for information/data not available for some or all of the regions, especially in the Asian and North African part of the Mediterranean; exchanges through the Gibraltar and Dardanelles Straits can also be reliably estimated, based on previous studies. It is recognized that the estimates of all budget components, as illustrated in the paragraphs above, can be improved. It is foreseen that some of these improvements will be obtained already in the actual implementation of the LOICZ budget.