Recent Submissions

Interannual to decadal variability in the Southern Ocean surface CO2 fluxes in relation with the large-scale atmospheric modes 

Yilmaz, Elif (Date of defense: 2025-09-25)

(English) Abstract The Southern Ocean (<35◦S), which encircles Antarctica, plays a disproportionately large role in the global carbon cycle, accounting for nearly half of the ocean’s uptake of anthropogenic CO₂. This ...

Morphodynamic modelling for coastal hazard mitigation 

Sánchez Artús, Xavier (Date of defense: 2025-06-17)

(English) Mediterranean sandy beaches are facing increasing hazard, a situation that will be exacerbated due to climate change. This thesis focuses on the analysis of flooding and erosion along Catalan beaches under present ...

La reconversión de los espacios portuarios, en el Puerto de Balboa en el Pacífico de Panamá. Propuesta de mejora de la operativa mediante un modelo de optimización 

López Millán, Marilyn (Date of defense: 2025-06-18)

(English) The coexistence of ports in the Panamanian Pacific with their surroundings requires everyone to have access to the ability to move around in an organized and spontaneous manner. The Port of Balboa, one of the ...

Spatial and temporal dynamics of larval fish communities in relation to environmental variability in the NW Mediterranean 

Raya Rodrigálvarez, Vanesa María (Date of defense: 2025-05-15)

(English) The early developmental stages of fish, eggs and larvae, found in the planktonic environment are subject to a high mortality. Thus, the study of larval survival has been a key issue in fisheries science since the ...

Seagrass meadow: a coastal protection perspective 

Astudillo Gutiérrez, Carlos Salvador (Date of defense: 2024-06-26)

(English) Over the decades, the global coastlines have been a key indicator of the development of actual societies. However, the cost of this growth has resulted in the depredation of natural environments. The increased ...

Ecosystem modelling for the ocean decade - facing the challenge 

Steenbeek, Jeroen (Date of defense: 2024-10-22)

(English) The worlds’marine ecosystems are degrading under wide ranges of ever intensifying, diversifying and co-occurring human pressures. Ecosystem-based management (EBM) approaches have emerged as an alternative to ...

The sand transport processes of bar cross-shore migration and beach recovery 

Grossmann, Florian (Date of defense: 2023-09-05)

(English) The sustainable management of coastal regions requires profound understanding of the physical processes that govern them. Here, a central aspect is the onshore and offshore migration of sandbars, transporting ...

Patterns of connectivity in marine microbial communities 

Marín Vindas, Carolina Alexandra (Date of defense: 2023-09-06)

(English) Marine microorganisms are fundamental for life on Earth. For example, they have produced most of the oxygen existing in our planet and are essential in biogeochemical cycles and energy flow to different trophic ...

An updated framework for inferring interior ocean circulation from high resolution marine satellite observations 

Piracha, Aqeel (Date of defense: 2024-02-16)

(English) It was not until 1982 that Gösta Walin proposed a formal framework to connect heat input from the sun to the large-scale thermal circulation of the ocean through quantifying a sur- face ”drift” of water from high ...

Challenges for shellfish aquaculture in Mediterranean coastal areas 

Fernández Tejedor, Margarita (Date of defense: 2023-12-18)

(English) The increase in the production of marine bivalves targets the sustainable development of aquaculture to improve global food and nutrition security. Bivalve aquaculture is currently facing challenges and threats ...

Technologically-sustained ecological monitoring of a coastal fish community with a highly integrated biological and environmental data 

Francescangeli, Marco (Date of defense: 2023-10-30)

(English) The Monitoring of coastal marine ecosystems has been traditionally carried out with man and vessel-assisted methodologies. In the last decades, new technologies have been progressively integrated by platforms ...

Assessment of the biological risks associated to the use of biosolids and wastewater 

Sanz Lanzas, Claudia (Date of defense: 2023-05-26)

(English) The circular economy is an emerging concept presented as a solution to counteract the damage caused by the linear economic scheme followed in the past decades. It is based on the principle of "closing the life ...

Pelagia noctiluca (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa) as an industrial research model: improvements in aquaculture techniques and preventive measures against their stings 

Ballesteros Mascarell, Ainara (Date of defense: 2023-01-13)

(English) Jellyfish stings cause discomfort to users of the marine environment, who sometimes require medical assistance. Although jellyfish stings are common today, the scientific community remains in disagreement on how ...

El costo del impacto sobre el litoral debido al cambio climático en Cataluña 

Lomelí Quintero, Víctor Manuel (Date of defense: 2023-10-13)

(English) Climate change is a major issue that is having a significant impact on coastal areas globally. This phenomenon is generating processes of erosion, flooding and sea level rise, which is of great concern. These ...

Return of the marine heterotrophic flagellates: diversity, distribution and gene expression patterns 

Obiol Plana, Aleix (Date of defense: 2023-01-27)

(English) Marine heterotrophic flagellates (HF) are very small (2-5 µm) unpigmented protists that are dominant bacterial grazers in the ocean, where they link the transfer of carbon from bacterial cells to higher trophic ...

Population dynamics, interactions and evolution of marine microbes using genomic approaches 

Latorre Pérez, Francisco (Date of defense: 2023-02-03)

(English) There is a myriad of microorganisms on Earth contributing to global biogeochemical cycles. In the surface ocean, the smallest microbes (picoplankton) are responsible for an important fraction of the total atmospheric ...

Citizen sciences technologies for operational monitoring of aquatic ecosystems 

Rodero García, Carlos (Date of defense: 2023-05-29)

(English) Light attenuation is a critical factor in aquatic ecosystems for many physical and biological processes. Water transparency plays an essential role in understanding the variations of the ecological environment ...

Estudio paleoclimático del afloramiento ecuatorial del Océano Pacífico durante los últimos 160.000 años a partir de biomarcadores moleculares 

Quirós Collazos, Lucía (Date of defense: 2022-06-27)

The present PhD thesis is focused on the paleoclimatic reconstruction of the Pacific Ocean equatorial upwelling conditions, east of the Galapagos Islands, over the last 160.000 years. This region is of great interest to ...

Linking hydrodynamic and biological processes in a shallow and micro tidal estuary : the case of Fangar bay (Ebro delta) 

Fernández-Pedrera Balsells, Marta (Date of defense: 2022-05-24)

This thesis analyses the relationships between hydrodynamics (and their forcings) and biological variables in Fangar Bay based on in situ observations, numerical models and satellite data. Fangar Bay is a relatively small, ...

Biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the surface ocean 

Martínez Varela, Alícia (Date of defense: 2022-04-29)

Increasing quantities of organic pollutants (OP) are being released to the environment, posing a threat to Earth’s life system. In the marine environment, OP pollution caused by oil spill accidents receives a lot of academic ...