BIOcean5D - D5.1 - New holistic indicators of impacts of coastal marine industries

This deliverable presents the development and assessment of new DNA-based indicators for evaluating the ecological impacts of coastal marine industries, focusing specifically on salmon aquaculture in Norway and offshore oil extraction in the North Sea. Traditional biomonitoring methods rely on morphological identification of benthic macrofauna, which is labor-intensive and dependent on expert taxonomists. In contrast, environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding offers a promising, scalable alternative for biodiversity and ecological quality status (EQS) assessments.