Investigating Current Transport with Drifter and HF Radar Data and Applications to Marine Protected Areas and Fishery Management

A methodology is discussed based on historical drifter data sets and on long (yearly) time series of HF radar to infer information on physical connections between ecological locations such as Marine Protected Areas (MAPs) and spawning and nursery areas. Two applications in the Adriatic Sea (a sub-basin of the Mediterranean Sea) are presented. Drifter data are used together with model results to assess connections and transit time between existing MPAs, while drifter and HF radars data are used to test possible hydrodynamic pathways for sardine larvae and eggs found in the nursery area of the Manfredonia Gulf. Implications for the establishment of a MPA networks and for fishery management are discussed.