Thousands of artificial (‘human-made ’ ) structures are present in the marine environment, many at or approaching end-of-life and requiring urgent decisions regarding their decommissioning. No consensus has been reached on which decommissioning option(s) result in optimal environmental and societal outcomes, in part, owing to a paucity of evidence from real-world decommissioning case studies. To address this significant chal- lenge, we asked a worldwide panel of scientists to provide their expert opinion. They were asked to identify and characterise the ecosystem effects of artificial structures in the sea, their causes and consequences, and to identify which, if any, should be retained following decommissioning. Experts considered that most of the pressures driving ecological and societal effects from marine artificial structures (MAS) were of medium severity, occur frequently, and are dependent on spatial scale with local-scale effects of greater magnitude than regional effects. The duration of many effects following decommissioning were considered to be relatively short, in the order of days. Overall, environmental effects of structures were considered marginally undesirable, while societal effects marginally desirable. Experts therefore indicated that any decision to leave MAS in place at end-of-life to be more beneficial to society than the natural environment. However, some individual environmental effects were considered desirable and worthy of retention, especially in certain geographic locations, where structures can support improved trophic linkages, increases in tourism, habitat provision, and population size, and provide stability in population dynamics. The expert analysis consensus that the effects of MAS are both negative and positive for the environment and society, gives no strong support for policy change whether removal or retention is favoured until further empirical evidence is available to justify change to the status quo. The combination of desirable and undesirable effects associated with MAS present a significant challenge for policy- and decision- makers in their justification to implement decommissioning options. Decisions may need to be decided on a case-by-case basis accounting for the trade-off in costs and benefits at a local level.
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Today, collaboration between scienti fi c research and civil society is growing signi fi cantly. The general public ’ s curiosity drives it to engage with the scienti fi c process and culture and in the search for solutions to complex issues (economic, social, health, environmental, cultural, educational, or ethical). Clari fi cation is needed to differentiate between occupational scienti fi c activity and citizen-based science. They do not require the same scienti fi c and technical skills despite using similar equipment and their legal and administrative frameworks being totally different. The confusion created by the indiscriminate use of the same term “ scienti fi c diving ” to refer to different training courses and activities compromises the quality of existing occupational standards and, ultimately, has a negative impact on the safety of the activity at work. A clear de fi nition of Citizen Scienti fi c Diving and Occupational Scienti fi c Diving makes it possible to differentiate between the objectives and target groups of these two activities and their legal framework. There is a need to establish an accepted and shared standard in the occupational fi eld and to ensure the mobility of scientists. A long process undertaken by a motivated scienti fi c community (late 1980s-2000s) led to the establishment of European initial training standards for Occupational Scienti fi c Diving through the ESDP-European Scienti fi c Diving Panel ( fi rstly under the aegis of the European Marine Board, now of the MARS-European marine stations network). The quality and general acceptance of these standards by a large part of the European scienti fi c community have already adopted them in the occupational health and safety legislation of seven European countries (Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the UK in 2023). Adopting them in other countries ’ health and safety legislation is still desirable. This will increase their recognition, acceptance and use for the bene fi t of scienti fi c work. Building bridges between academic science and non-academic citizen science is possible and this is done by developing coherent projects that produce results that bene fi t both science and society. While distinguishing between the two, as an added value, this approach could better guide the recreational diving training sector in developing a new market.
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