Across Europe, aquatic biodiversity is under threat, and often, we don’t have the full picture of what’s happening. MARCO-BOLO is helping change this by improving how we study and share information about life in our rivers, coasts, and seas.

The project collects data on species and habitats, for example, tracking the movements of migratory fish like the European eel, or monitoring changes in seagrass cover along coastlines. It also works with scientists and other experts to make that data easier to understand and use. Right now, biodiversity information is often stored in different ways, scattered across platforms, or written in formats that only a few can access. That means important discoveries can be missed, even when the data already exists.