Policy makers require a knowledge-based support to identify effective interventions for the socio-economic sustainability of human activities at sea. When dealing with anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems, we deal with a complex and faceted system which has high variability in terms of environment, regulation, governance, industrial activities, and geo-political scenarios. We analyzed the conceptual scientific framework adopted to address underwater noise as a polluting component of the marine environment. We identified the scientific paths that can provide useful contributions towards comprehending the impacts on the native ecosystem. In order to furnish relevant clues towards the properties of the interconnection of signals, we briefly reviewed an example from a different discipline (helioseismology). We describe a new approach on how acoustic energy in the sea could be detected and analyzed to understand its role in the functioning of the ecosystem. We propose a change of perspective in the observation strategy of underwater noise, promoting a knowledge transfer from other disciplines, which in turn will enable a better understanding of the system. This will allow researchers and policy-makers to identify feasible and effective solutions to tackle the negative impacts of underwater noise and the conservation of the marine ecosystem.

In the last decade, several initiatives have been taken at a European level to adopt the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) by promoting coordination and stimulating integrated actions leading to consistent views on its final goal: the achievement of good environmental status (GES). In its holistic approach, the MSFD fully acknowledges the complexity and variability of marine ecosystems and demands constant scientific support for its actual implementation. Recently, the Joint Programming Initiative on “Healthy and Productive Seas and Oceans” (JPI Oceans) launched the joint action “Science for Good Environmental Status” (Science4GES), building on the contribution of different scientific disciplines and communities to better fulfill the scope of the MSFD. In this paper we illustrate and discuss a few crucial aspects of endeavors to implement the MSFD specifically implied in the definition of the metrics for the 11 descriptors and GES in its complexity, as well as improving the strategy governing its implementation. This presentation also describes the challenges, aims and implementation plan for the JPI-O joint action, where a transdisciplinary approach may help in progressing from the comprehensive and far-reaching vision of the MSFD to the achievement of a durable GES.

Ocean sustainability entails the management of marine ecosystems and their services. Monitoring and evaluation of the health of the sea is challenged by the complexity of the marine environment, whose multitude and interconnected aspects, together with the lack of comprehensive models, make the understanding of its functioning a very arduous endeavour. Observations are costly and time-consuming. For this reason, a European joint action, named Science for Good Environmental Status, tested a new approach to monitor and evaluate effectively the state of health of the sea. This approach is based on the identification of driving physical processes that are present in the sea basins and directing the observation strategy to be designed on the basis of preliminary space–time information and patterns. The proof-of-concept of this approach has been implemented offshore of the Belgian coast in an attempt to achieve ecosystem assessments with targeted data collection methods requiring a reduced combination of variables. The proposed approach can impact monitoring activities implemented by those countries aiming to fulfil the requests of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive. A map of EU marine areas to further test this process-based approach is also provided.

Anthropogenic and natural factors impacting health and well-being in coastal waters, regional seas, and the global ocean have long been recognized by the marine scientists, however not as much by the medical and public health community. Although establishing causal effects that directly or indirectly affect human health-related conditions is problematic and depends on the complex marine ecosystem, significant influences are present at both local and global levels, i.e., specific to coastal areas but also associated with sea activities referred to the ‘ocean health’ status. This offers a good rationale for an assessment of the human-marine environment interaction, evolution and complexity landscape. The health ecosystem as a whole (humans and environment, especially marine in our interests) is a complex bio-entity whose dynamics are largely unknown due to the presence of biodiversity and heterogeneity. In parallel, this complexity translates into various new processes that the stakeholders face to establish possible interventions and preserve the sustainability. A major checkpoint in our discussion refers to how to leverage the consolidated and indeed pervasive role of digital information across multiple fields and disciplines, supported by developments in artificial intelligence, machine learning and network science. This is an urgency, as the scientific marine community and the public health policy makers are struggling to gather big data from multiple sources and/or devices that help reveal the marine environmental status. Improvements in the ability of analyzing efficiently and effectively data are needed, and we suggest to profitably look at knowledge transfer strategies. In particular, considering and valuing how the scientific biomedical community has made use of network inference approaches to better understand complex biosystems in both structural and functional terms, we believe that the existing knowledge base can be further generalized to deal with the marine environmental ecosystem context.