The overall increase in maritime transport, coastal urbanization and the foreseen increase in offshore oil and gas extraction pose serious risks of pollution from hazardous substances for several coastal states in the whole Mediterranean, and in particular in the Adriatic - Ionian region. Countries sharing a marine region or sub-region should adopt a common approach to environmental monitoring, good environmental status definition and assessment.

In the Adriatic – Ionian marine sub-regions, the level of coherence and consistency of several EU and regional environmental policies, particularly in the assessment of contamination from hazardous substances, needs a common implementation.

In the framework of enhancing the capacity to tackle environmental vulnerability and safeguard ecosystem services at transnational scale, the objective of HarmoNIA is twofold:

to share best practices to support the harmonized implementation of marine environmental directives in the ADRION region

to strengthen the network of data infrastructures to facilitate access and re-use of marine data among countries bordering the Adriatic – Ionian Seas.