KEYCOP is the acronym for the EU-project Key coastal processes in the mesotrophic Skagerrak and the oligotrophic Aegean and was funded by the European Commission's Marine Science and Technology Programme (MAST-III) from 1998 to 2001 (MAS3-CT97-0148). [1] [2]
Aim of the marine research project was to understand and model the processes that determine flux of carbon, nutrients and trace substances in the water column and sediment in different hydrographic and nutrient regimes and the vertical and horizontal fluxes between the pelagic and benthic systems. In particular the project studied how processes change over scales from micrometres to tens of metres and along physicochemical gradients, and compared processes under two contrasting situations, stratified and mixed water masses. By comparing two contrasting semi-enclosed European Seas, the Skagerrak and the northern Aegean, the project was able to study differences in functioning between a mesotrophic and oligotrophic system. These were complemented by one-dimensional modelling studies (General Ocean Turbulence Model, GOTM[3], coupled with European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model, ERSEM[4]).
The project was coordinated by John S. Gray, professor of marine biology, at the University of Oslo, Norway and had five further partner institutes and four associate partners and subcontractors from seven European countries in total. The scientific results were a contribution to the major initiatives to understand coastal processes and interactions: Land Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ[5]) established by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP[6]), and the European Land-Ocean Interaction Study (ELOISE[7]) established by the European Union. Project results were archived in the data library PANGAEA [8].