As Gattuso and Duarte (2021) point out, global oceans are surprisingly resilient provided that the conditions for this resilience are created, i.e., the cessation of disturbances. There are numerous examples of the recolonization of disturbed areas in the English Channel ecosystem: following oil spills, as in the Bay of Morlaix, isolation from the sea during the construction of the La Rance dam, or the cessation of aggregate extraction or sediment dumping in the Bay of Seine. Thus, as soon as a disturbance ceases, recolonization is rapid and conditions return to those close to those observed before the stress, provided the habitat remains the same.
Four sites have been selected for this theme: the harbour of Cherbourg, which concentrates diverse activities such as port dredging, the dock constructions and salmon farming; the open sea off the Bay of Seine, a site of fishing, aggregate extractions and future wind farm installations; the Fécamp-Dieppe area and the coastline of the Seine-Maritime, with fishing activities, aggregate extractions and the presence of two offshore wind farms at Fécamp and Dieppe-Le-Tréport; and the eastern part of the Bay of Seine, an area concentrating numerous human activities: fishing, aggregate extractions, port dredging, dredged sediment dumping, the wind farm off Courseulles-sur-Mer, as well as a Natura 2000 area. The project will focus on analyzing the data acquired by the various partners of the SIG ECUME in order to unravel the recolonization dynamics in the ecosystems of these four sites and to minimize the footprint of anthropogenic activities at these sites by adopting strategies that promote the recolonization by marine fauna once the activities have ceased.
