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The MELMARINA consortium comprises two European partners: University College London (UCL) (the Project co-ordinators, and DHI - Water and Environment (DHIWE) and four from North Africa: one from Morocco (Institut Scientifique, Rabat - ISRABAT); two from Tunisia, (Institut National Des Sciences et Technologies de la Mer - INSTM, and Department of Geography, Faculte des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines, University of Sousse - FLSHS); and one from Egypt (National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences - NARSS). Significant sub-contractors are based in Italy (JRC Ispra) and the UK (University of Ulster). The roles and inter-relationships of the participant groups are summarised in the following figure. The precise roles of each partner groups and the contact details of the resposbile scientists within each group is detailed below.
Inter-relationships of MELMARINA Partners and Major Subcontractor (Blue: European groups, Green: North African groups, dotted box: subcontractor. Bold lines indicate main paths of data and information exchange and dotted lines indicate secondary paths including model results)
Melmarina is co-ordinated by two of the Department of Geography, University College London's (UCL) research centres / units, the Environmental Change Research Centre and the Wetland Research Unit. UCL will organise the overall scientific and administrative programme of MELMARINA, and will also co-ordinate Workpackages (WP) 1-4 and 9. Modelling hydrology and calibrating and classifying remote sensing images (past and present) with hydrological and botanical characteristics will be carried out at UCL in conjunction with DHI and NARSS. Fieldwork will initially be carried out jointly between UCL and each North African partner group and UCL will take a lead role in establishing the initial site spatial survey procedures for water quality, hydrology (including installation of monitoring equipment) and for sediments (WPs 1-3). Relationships between aquatic plants and water quality will carried out and the major subcontractor, JRC (Ispra), will undertake much of the work of calibrating and classifying remote sensing images according to aquatic vegetation cover. UCL will take a lead in designing databases and in deriving statistical relations between (i) water quality and vegetation (ii) water availability and the remote sensed data. Reporting, construction and design of web pages and specific dissemination of the project results to environmental planning and conservation agencies within Europe and North Africa will also be undertaken.
The main responsibility of DHI - Water and Environment (DHIWE) is hydrological/hydraulic modelling and calibration of the MIKE 21 model as described in WP 6. DHIWE (in conjunction with UCL and NARSS) will include the aquatic vegetation and other biological aspects in the model and carry out testing of future management scenarios. The assessment of environmental change forcing factors (WP 7) and the running of simulation models for future environmental changes according to various scenarios (WP 8) will also be undertaken together with UCL. Particular attention will be given to future scenarios that will include salinity, water level and nutrient status changes under a variety of conditions (management and natural) and results will be transferred to each North African partner group. The provision of good quality empirical data for calibrating existing models is absolutely essential to good modelling and DHIWE staff will play a role in WP 1-3, to advise on environmental measuring procedures. Three young scientists from each MED country will be provided with training in environmental modelling over one month at DHIWE in Denmark.
Institut Scientifique, Rabat (ISRABAT) will be responsible for all MELMARINA activities in Morocco. It will undertake data gathering activities (modern and historical), supervise all fieldwork (in conjunction with UCL staff), carry out hydrology, water chemistry, macrophyte, plankton and invertebrate analyses for Moroccan sites, and analyse Tunisian zooplankton samples. ISRABAT will co-ordinate analysis (to include harmonisation of taxonomies) of all the zooplankton samples from all the North African sites in the project. It will supervise and be responsible for all reports and data analysis of the work in Morocco, organisation of Moroccan workshops, and will be responsible (with co-authors) for final zooplankton / zoobenthos reports from the project. Local training to graduate students will be given and young scientists will be provided to attend the training courses at UCL, DHIWE and at NARSS.
Institut National Des Sciences et Technologies de la Mer (INSTM) will co-ordinate and be responsible for all fish, water chemistry analysis and plant survey activities in Tunisia. It will collect information on the fishery status of the MELMARINA sites in Tunisia, and co-ordinate all the fisheries work for the project in Morocco and Egypt (WP 1 and 3). INSTM will be responsible for reports and data analysis of all aspects of the fish/chemistry/aquatic plant work in Tunisia and the joint organisation of Tunisian workshops with FLSHS. With co-authors (one Moroccan and one Egyptian) it will produce a final fish report for all north African sites and a final report on vegetation transects and chemistry in Tunisia.
Faculte des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines, University of Sousse (FLSHS) will be responsible for spatial assessment of each site in Tunisia and for the monitoring programme in Tunisia as described in WPs 1-3. They will maintain the field data loggers, co-ordinate the efforts of local observers and pass collected water samples on to INSTM for water analysis and to ISRABAT for plankton analysis. Selected samples will be used for internal and external AQC checks. With co-authors they will provide a final report on the hydrological data. Local training to graduate students will be given and young scientists will be provided to attend the training courses at UCL, DHIWE and at NARSS.
National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS) will be responsible for all field activities in Egypt. It will undertake the hydrological, water chemistry monitoring and plankton and macrophyte sampling from the Egyptian sites. Furthermore, it will co-ordinate the AQC of water chemistry (in conjunction with the UCL sub-contractor) and phytoplankton data from all three North African countries. It will collect information and analyse spatial data (water quality and vegetation) for all MELMARINA sites and with UCL, will co-ordinate the remote sensing work for the project and work closely with JRC, the major sub-contractor to UCL. It will be responsible for carrying out laboratory measurements on the geochemical characteristics of surface sediment and (with UCL) make dating measurements on sediments to estimate sediment accumulation rates. The survey and monitoring work in Egypt represents a major undertaking since the Egyptian lagoons are several times larger and much more vegetated than the MELMARINA sites elsewhere in North Africa. NARSS staff will visit UCL/JRC/DHIWE to improve analysis and application of the remote sensing/modelling work. Local training to graduate students will be given and young scientists will be provided to attend the training courses at UCL and DHIWE. NARSS will run a special one-week course on the application of remote sensing techniques to lagoons. As well as Egyptian participants, MED scientists from Morocco and Tunisia associated with the MELMARINA programme will attend this module.
Last updated Friday, March 13 2009 .
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