Under the “Integrated Marine Pollution Monitoring (DEN-İZ) Program”, the 3rd National Marine Monitoring and Assesment Symposium was held in Antalya on 6-9 December 2022.
At the opening of the symposium with a broad participation from the Ministry of Industry and Technology, the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Universities, Local Authorities and Non-Governmental Organizations, the opening remarks were made by Mr. Mehrali ECER, Director General of Environmental Impact Assesments, Permits and Inspections in the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, and Prof. Ahmet YOZGATLIGİL, TÜBİTAK Vice President and TÜBİTAK MAM President.
In his speech, Prof. Yozgatlıgil said, “We aim to make environmental assessments of all our seas with real and reliable multi-disciplinary data sets, to establish administrative goals, to create scientific tools to follow up these goals and to transfer them to the users.”
In addition to the presentations of the DEN-İZ Program outputs, the symposium included other monitoring/observation and evaluation activities based on up-to-date data and applications.
The "3rd National Marine Monitoring and Assessment Symposium" aimed to share the monitoring studies in a way to reflect monitoring and evaluation together. During the symposium, oral and poster presentations were made, a photography exhibition was held, and plaques were presented to the winners and contributors to the studies.
The symposium was attended by approximately 200 people, consisting of scientists, researchers and representatives from public institutions and organizations, universities, municipalities, non-governmental organizations, international institutions and organizations.
The symposium included the sessions of "DEN-İZ Presentation and DEN-İZ Film Screening", "Mucilage and the Sea of Marmara", "Eutrophication", "Pollutants", "The Impact of Climate Change on Our Seas", "Remote Sensing and Observation Systems", "Biodiversity and Habitat”, "Marine Litter”, “Biodiversity-Phytoplankton", “Biodiversity-Benthic Macroalgae”, “Biodiversity-Zooplankton and Fish” and “New Topics/New Areas” and a panel where all sessions were evaluated.
The DEN-İZ Program, which has been carried out since 2014 under the coordination of the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change and TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center (MAM), is carried out with more than 100 researchers and subject experts, apart from the team of TÜBİTAK MAM Climate Change and Sustainability Vice Presidency Marine Research and Technologies Research Group.
The DEN-İZ Program is carried out in 3-year periods for all seas, by adopting an ecosystem-based monitoring approach, within the framework of national legislation, international conventions and EU directives. With the DEN-İZ Program, a regular monitoring network is established at 425 points in total with 17 Research Institutions, more than 150 scientists and 7 research ships/boats in all our seas, including the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara and the Straits, the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea, under the direction of our Ministry and under the coordination of TÜBİTAK MAM; the chemical and ecological status of our seas is determined and the effectiveness of the measures is evaluated.
