MINI REVIEW article
Front. Clim.
Sec. Climate, Ecology and People
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fclim.2025.1529019
This article is part of the Research TopicEcosystem Technology and Climate AdaptationView all 4 articles
Integrating Ecosystem Technology into Coastal and Marine Infrastructure: Biodiversity Assessments and Methodologies for Comparative Analyses
Provisionally accepted
- 1ECOncrete Inc., New York, United States
- 2School of Zoology, The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel
- 3The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel
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The integration of "greening the gray" (GTG) into marine infrastructure represents a transformative approach to enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services in heavily modified environments. However, the ecological effectiveness of GTG remains hindered by inconsistent methodologies and knowledge gaps. This study proposes a methodological approach for GTG biodiversity assessments, focusing on appropriate control site selection, integration of count and coverage data through occupancy methods, and applying coverage-based rarefaction to address sampling biases. The approach facilitated consistent evaluation of biodiversity data and reliable evaluation of GTG performance across various contexts, specifically using a GTG project at the Port of Vigo in Spain as a case study. This methodology structure supports sustainable marine infrastructure development by providing scalable, evidence-based methodologies for biodiversity assessment and fostering international collaboration among ecologists, developers, and stakeholders.
Keywords: Ecosystem Technology (EcoTech)1, Nature Inclusive Design (NID)2, ecosystem services3, Greening the Grey4, Standardized Monitoring5
Received: 15 Nov 2024; Accepted: 29 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Leit, Rosenberg, Belmaker and Sella. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Aliza Leit, aliza@econcrete.us
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