Italian contribution to the research and monitoring plan for the Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area

The Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area (RSRMPA) is the largest marine protected area in the world that entered into force in December 2017 and Italy is deeply involved in the preparation of the research and monitoring plan in the CCAMLR context. Italy has a longstanding tradition of scientific research and cooperation projects with other Countries in the Ross Sea Region within the framework of its National Research Programme in Antarctica (PNRA). The Italian "Mario Zucchelli" Station is located in Terra Nova Bay (TNB), in a strategic position in the Ross Sea (RS) for marine research and monitoring. Over the years, the Italian activity in this area allowed the collection of a significant bulk of data spanning a wide range of scientific disciplines including the presence of permanent observatories. Since 1994 the Italian PNRA deployed a number of oceanographic moorings in the framework of different projects; to date four moorings constitute the Italian permanent marine monitoring network (morsea.uniparthenope.it) that is a unique example of long time monitoring of the RS. The main goals of the observatory are to provide continuous measurement of the water masses characteristics and vertical sediment fluxes and to study their variability in crucial points of the RS region. Concurrently, ship and land based scientific activities were performed mainly in the western RS in the framework of a variety of national projects as well as international collaborations. Based on the scientific background acquired by the Italian research community in these years, the proposed contribution of Italy to the research and monitoring plan for the RSRMPA has been recently described in the paper "Italian PNRA contribution to the research and monitoring plan for the RSRMPA" (2017).