"Modelling for me offers a unique ability to study all the complex interactions that shape marine ecosystems and to understand how they react to all disturbances created by climate change, acidification and human activities. As such, it gives me the opportunity to inform and support the creation of new policies and management strategies aimed at a sustainable development of society. "
After a degree in Environmental engineering at the University of Padua (Italy), Yuri moved the focus of his research on modelling eutrophication in coastal area during his PhD, always at University of Padua. Since he moved to PML in 2008, Yuri has been developing and applying various models to study the impact of global stressors (like climate change, ocean acidification) as well as direct anthropogenic activities (like nutrient pollution, fishery and aquaculture) on marine ecosystems and the interaction among these drivers. He also studies how marine ecosystem could play a role in supporting society to address global challenges like climate changes, food provision and health. His interest spans from more purely scientific questions (like the importance of natural variability on determining the resilience of the marine systems) to translating that research in application to support policy makers, regulators, industry and the wider society in their effort to achieve global environmental goals like the Paris agreement on climate, the SDGs and the Colombo declaration.
Yuri is currently PI and co-I in several UK and EU funded projects.
Since September 2020 he is coordinator of PML Science to Impact Challenge area “Understanding and mitigating climate change”.
PML coordinate the Northeast Atlantic OA hub that forms part GOA-ON. The key role of the hub is to promote a common methodology for recording measurements, encourage submission to National Data Centres and cataloguing of this data on a central global portal to map effort and identify gaps. This ensures that member states fulfil their obligations under SDG14.3 by providing the measurements needed to meet this target.