RemediGrass: Seagrass beds as green and blue infrastructures for ecosystem restoration

This project aims to contribute to target 2 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 states that "By 2020, ecosystems and their services are maintained and enhanced by establishing green infrastructure and restoring at least 15% of degraded ecosystems". The novelty of the project will be the development of a remediation tool for historically contaminated estuaries, through the use of seagrass beds as a green and blue infrastructure (GBI). The re-colonization of impacted areas with seagrasses will enhance natural attenuation through sediment stabilization and accretion, accelerating the recovery of degraded systems, while increasing biodiversity and ecosystem services. Contaminant bioavailability and trophic transfer are also expected to decrease after recovery measures. The development of scenarios on long-term effects of the intervention on ecosystem resilience, ecosystem services, rehabilitation cost and funding options (cost-profit budget) will allow to evaluate the potential of seagrass ecosystems as candidate GBI.