Dynamic Coastal and Marine Monitoring with Geomatics and Earth Observation: Insights from the MPA of Miramare

The conservation of ecosystems in coastal and marine areas is crucial to maintaining biodiversity and ensuring ecosystem services. The ‘European Biodiversity Strategy 2030’ envisages increasing the land and marine area protected to 30 per cent, aiming to restore ecosystems degraded by human action and climate change. The latter represents a growing challenge, with increasingly unpredictable consequences. The effective management of these areas requires the adoption of dynamic tools and the integration of multidisciplinary knowledge. Among the available tools, Earth Observation (EO) data are fundamental, but need validation through in situ surveys with geomatics techniques. This contribution proposes a spatial information infrastructure to support the planning and management of protected areas. The infrastructure is tested in the Miramare Marine Protected Area. This work, which is still in progress, aims to improve the management of coastal areas by offering more accurate and timely decision-making tools, and represents a first step towards a more integrated and adaptive approach.