Ph.D. research in long-term ecological changes in the Adriatic basin, based on analysis of historical data, was carried on with aim to contribute to a better understanding of vulnerabilities and ongoing changes in Adriatic Sea. In order to do that, more than 2336770 data from different datasets have been analyzed, considering in the same time the complexity of available data and interconnections between different parameters. Climatological analyses of air temperature, precipitation, Po River runoff, sea temperature, salinity, nutrients concentration, pH and chlorophyll for the period 1970-2008, together with decadal trends in biological components (small pelagics and demersal resources), were carried on in order to describe changes happened during the last decades. Moreover, all marine parameters have been subdivided in four seasons and three depths (surface, intermediate and bottom layer), obtaining spatial maps for decadal seasonal (also bimonthly for sea temperature and salinity) anomalies in the northern Adriatic Sea; subdivided also in three areas with different characteristics relative to the influence of the Po River in order to apply statistical trend analyses and regime shift analyses.
Obtained results show that the northern Adriatic Sea during the last two decades has been influenced by a generalized warming of air temperature in all seasons, together with changes in precipitation pattern and a varying of Po river runoff, together with variations of thermohaline and biogeochemical properties in the northern Adriatic, which in turn drive marine ecosystems changes; some of them are evident in terms of the abundance of small pelagic and demersal resources. Statistical analysis demonstrates that such changes occur in some cases as long-term trends, in others as regime shifts, in some others as both; whereas in further cases trends or shifts were not statistically significant or the data available (like for nutrients, chlorophyll, demersal resources) were sufficient to perform reliable statistical analysis only over the last two decades. Anthropogenic synergistic effects are detectable, but could not be quantified in this research.
The great difficulties in finding available good quality data, that could be used for the above mentioned analysis, stress the importance of promoting and carrying out regular monitoring of many marine variables and their diffusion in easy accessible data bases.
