UN Assessment of Assessments - Welcome to ICES Doccuments/CM-2012/DEL/CM_2012...Council Meeting October 2012 CM 2012 Del-11.2 Updated October 16 2012 UN Assessment of Assessments The

Council Meeting

October 2012

CM 2012 Del-11.2

Updated October 16 2012

UN Assessment of Assessments The meeting is invited to take note of the report from the regional workshop “Regular process for global reporting and assessment of the state of the marine environment, including socio‐economic aspects”, held in Brussels, Belgium, 27‐29 June 2012. ICES was represented by Jörn Schmidt.

The meeting is especially invited to consider the conclusions and recommendations contained in paragraphs 45‐46 in the report.

A list of appointments to the pool of experts can be found on: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/global_reporting/Pool%20of%20experts%20Chart.pdf

(Report below updated 16 October due to receipt of final version with minor adjustments to the text)

Final report of the Workshop held under the auspices of the United Nations in support of the Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment, including Socioeconomic Aspects

Brussels, Belgium, 27–29 June 2012

I. Background

1. Following the recommendations made at the second meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group of the Whole on the Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment, including Socioeconomic Aspects (the “Regular Process”), and endorsed by the General Assembly in resolution 66/231 of 24 December 2011, a workshop for the North Atlantic, the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea was convened from 27 to 29 June 2012 in the Egmont Palace in Brussels, Belgium (the “Workshop”), under the auspices of the United Nations, in support of the Regular Process.

2. The Workshop was conducted in close cooperation between the host country, the EU, and the secretariat of the Regular Process, the Division of Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs (DOALOS). It was organized with the cooperation and support of the Intergovernmental

Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO/IOC). Its proceedings unfolded in line with the agenda (see Annex 1). A list of participants is contained in Annex 2 and a literature list is included in Annex 8.

II. Proceedings of the Workshop1

Agenda Items 1 to 5 – Opening of the Workshop, Organisation of the Workshop and Adoption of the Agenda

3. The Workshop was opened by Mr. Marijn Rabaut, North Sea Advisor for the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, Consumer Affairs and the North Sea, Belgium. The speaker mentioned the importance of the Regular Process and protection and sustainable use of coastal and marine resources, and wished the participants a successful Workshop.

4. The host country nominated Ms. Lorna Inniss, Joint Coordinator of the Group of Experts of the Regular Process and Ms. Sophie Mirgaux, representative of the Belgian Federal Public Service of Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment as the Co‐Chairs of the Workshop. A team of rapporteurs was appointed, consisting of Ms. Trine Christiansen (EEA), Mr. Wouter Rommens (Consultant, UNEP/GRID‐Arendal), and Ms. Saskia Van Gaever (Group of Experts).

1 The presentations made at the Workshop and annexes mentioned in this report are available at: http://regular.process.iode.org.

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5. The objectives of the regional workshops were explained by the Co‐Chairs. As recommended by the Ad Hoc Working Group of the Whole on the Regular Process in February 2011, the regional workshops are devised as a key mechanism by which the First Global Integrated Marine Assessment will be accomplished and States will enhance their assessment capacity. Workshops are also intended to facilitate dialogue between the Group of Experts of the Regular Process and representatives and experts from States and relevant intergovernmental organizations. The first Workshop was held in Santiago, Chile in September 2011. The second Workshop was held in Sanya, China in February 2012.

6. Pursuant to the Guidelines for Workshops, participants in the Workshop were asked to provide beforehand, contributions on the information listed in its Appendix I. An analysis of the existing marine assessments in Europe was conducted by Mr. Frédéric Brochier, UNESCO/IOC Consultant, and was considered as a very important information and basis document (Annex 3).

7. The Workshop was held in the format of presentations by invited experts, followed by discussions in the plenary setting on these presentations, as well as work in working groups, reporting back to the plenary.

8. The Workshop adopted its agenda as in annex 1.

Agenda Item 6.1 – Background of the Regular Process

9. The background of the Regular Process was introduced to the Workshop.

The Regular Process and the Ad Hoc Working Group of the Whole of the General Assembly (Ms. Annebeth Rosenboom, Senior Legal Officer, Division of Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea)

10. The rationale, history, mandate, institutional arrangements and next steps of the Regular Process were explained. In 2002, States at the World Summit on Sustainable Development recommended the creation of a regular process for these purposes. The preparatory phase of the Regular Process was from 2002‐2005, followed by the start‐up phase occurring in 2005‐2009. In 2009‐2010, the framework, first cycle, and modalities of the Regular Process were developed. In 2010‐2012, the first phase of the first cycle began, under the oversight and guidance of the Ad Hoc Working Group of the Whole, to develop the strategy for the First Global Integrated Marine Assessment which will be produced during the second phase of the first cycle in 2013‐2014.

11. The institutional arrangements, in addition to the Ad Hoc Working Group of the Whole, include the following:

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(a) Bureau of the Regular Process: three Member States from each Regional Group of the General Assembly, with one Member State from each Regional Group and one Co‐Chair needed for a quorum;

(b) Group of Experts of the Regular Process: up to five experts nominated by each Regional Group. The Group of Experts has designated two of its members to act as joint coordinators; and

(c) Pool of Experts: a much larger body of experts which will consist of more than 1000 individual experts nominated, according to the agreed criteria, by Member States through each Regional Group.

12. It was important to understand the pressures and difficulties in this work, and the need for capacity‐building and transfer of technology. Financial constraints were being faced by States to support the process, and some alterations had already been made to the working modality according to available resources.

Agenda Item 6.2 to 6.6 – The framework of the first cycle of the Regular Process

13. A series of presentations was given on various aspects of the Regular Process, including capacity‐building for marine assessments.

Taking forward World Ocean Assessment I (Mr. Alan Simcock, Group of Experts)

14. Mr. Simcock emphasized the aims, scope and desired outcome of the Workshop. The main points in the subsequent discussion were:

‐ This first World Ocean Assessment will provide an overall map of human activities, pressures and environmental problems which can be used by specialized agencies to set their direction and achieve their goals.

‐ Two important issues will be those of scale and integration. The Regular Process should build on management‐based integrated assessments. It will be necessary to describe the different ecosystem components and to scale these up to the global level.

‐ It is clear that capacity‐building for assessments is considered as a crucial part of the process by the developing countries.

‐ There is a general concern that the outline of the first assessment is not that ‘ecosystem‐friendly’.

‐ How will the extensive first assessment be presented to and used by the high‐level policy, by directors of banks, by the private sector, etc.

Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment (World Ocean Assessment). Outline of the First Integrated Assessment Report (Mr. Peter Harris, Group of Experts)

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15. Mr. Harris presented the outline of the first report. This version had undergone thorough discussion and was finally approved by Ad Hoc Working Group of the Whole in April 2012. The underlying approach was to be the framework of Drivers – Pressures – Status – Impact – Response (DPSIR). The outline is divided into seven parts: (1) Summary for decision‐makers; (2) The Context of the Assessment; (3) Ocean Ecosystem Services; (4) Cross‐cutting issue – food security and safety; (5) Other human activities; (6) Biodiversity and habitats; (7) Overall evaluations.

16. It was clearly explained that the first report will make no evaluation of existing assessments. However if the aim is to produce a fully integrated assessment, the AHWGW has accepted that the environment, the economy and/or society have been significantly affected by regulatory measures. The first World Ocean Assessment will therefore identify environmental, economic and/or social consequences of policy interventions, without expressing a view on the policies themselves.

Method of work and Guidance for authors (Mr. Chul Park, Group of Experts)

17. The presentation provided information on the assessment team; the types of input from members of the Group of Experts and the Pool of Experts; selection of drafters; the sequence of inputs by drafters, consultors, peer‐reviewers and the Group of Experts; and the Guidance for contributors;

18. The Guidance for contributors will be finalized as soon as possible and will help all involved parties to move in the same direction, and to provide a transparent process. It will cover the kinds of information that should be used in the assessment, the preference for publicly available, peer‐reviewed information, the safeguards for information that has not been peer‐reviewed, how to deal with divergent views, uncertainty and risk, the need to ensure proper citation of sources used, and to disclose any conflict of interest. The Guidance will also cover approaches to integration and a style sheet. All authors would act in their personal capacity as independent experts and not as representatives of a government or any other authority or organization.

19. In the subsequent discussion, the following suggestions were made:

‐ To explain in detail the use of the DPSIR framework in the first assessment;

‐ To add some consideration on the role of an integrated assessment in chapter 2;

‐ To add some case‐examples of implications of cumulative pressures in chapter 46;

‐ To increase the connectivity among chapters, for instance through the ecosystem services chapters;

‐ To describe tourism as a sector exploiting ecosystem services;

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‐ To use as much as possible quantified data in order to maximize confidence levels;

20. Some general concerns were explained:

‐ There is an urgent need for experts from Eastern Europe. It should be possible to contact them via the EUCC network.

‐ AHWGW decided that the control and guidance of the Regular Process will be in the hands of the States. Ministries of Foreign Affairs can nominate national experts, experts from international organizations, as well as experts from other States to be member of the Pool of Experts. Nominations (Personal History Form: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/global_reporting/Personal_History_Form.doc) should be sent to the missions in NY. The list of appointed experts can be found at http://www.un.org/Depts/los/global_reporting/Pool%20of%20experts%20Chart%2030%20May%202012.pdf

‐ Members of the Group of Experts in charge of leading the drafting of chapters will informally contact specialized agencies or organizations to supply them with data or advice.

‐ The question was raised whether results will be present per region or as one worldwide assessment. The approach will be mixed throughout the assessment report and will, depending on the topic of the chapter. For instance, land‐based inputs cannot be evaluated without a regional description. Other subjects will be handled only on a global level, e.g. whales or sea turtles.

‐ This first assessment will be based only on existing, available assessments. The Group of Experts has neither mandate nor resources to go back to original data. This first assessment is labeled as a bench mark or baseline by which the results of future assessments will be measured. The report will address how marine assessments can be improved in the different regions. It will be an important goal to give clearer guidance on how major intergovernmental organizations can change their practice to improve marine ecosystem management.

Agenda Item 8 – Overview of existing regional assessments and presentation of regional programmes

Information and Assessments from the USA (Mr. Jake Rice and Mr. Andrew Rosenberg, Group of Experts)

21. Mr. Rosenberg presented on existing marine assessments from the United States side of the North West Atlantic. He first explained that the US Coastal Condition Report looks primarily at water quality all around the country, but also at sediment quality, the benthic index and the fish tissue contaminant index. This report contains quantitative data.

The US NOAA publishes extensive information on fishing, including the stock status, fishing gear, stock evolution. Results of research vessel surveys (NEFSC monitoring stations) analyze fish stocks and hydrographic information which is compiled in annual reports. Regional assessments (Northeast region assessment)

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deal with environmental and ecosystem surveys and protected species assessments exist as well.

Additionally, socioeconomic assessments were carried out, on issues such as the economic importance of certain types of fisheries, evaluation of the social capital of fisheries, assessment of job satisfaction, as well as environmental impact assessments (EIAs). Furthermore a National Ocean Economics Program (including a database) was developed.

22. Mr. Rice presented on assessments in the Canadian North West Atlantic Ocean. Canada takes on a number of different types of assessments, such as water quality monitoring (focused in main harbors), mandatory compliance monitoring (only for specific industries), physical oceanographic monitoring, biotic monitoring, satellite monitoring stations, fish and invertebrate assessments, Aichi Biodiversity Target reporting. Most regions have annual state of the ocean reports. Socioeconomic information is compiled in marine economy statistics, fisheries databases, marine transportation databases. Integration of the results is partially taken care of in ecosystem overview and assessment reports, ecosystem status and trends reports and the health of the ocean reports.

Federal programs are done by Fish & Oceans Canada or Environment Canada and methods are standardized.

Overview of existing marine assessments in Europe (North East Atlantic, Baltic Sea, Mediterranean and Black Sea) (Mr. Frédéric Brochier, Consultant UNESCO/IOC)

23. Mr. Brochier presented the very broad and detailed report on the existing marine assessments in Europe he made for UNESCO/IOC (Annex 3). The report makes an inventory of recent assessments (including in depth coverage of the Mediterranean and Black Seas) and proposes new assessments, where gaps were distinguished.

24. The report foresaw the inventory and suggests new and recent marine assessments that may be relevant for the UN Regional Regular Process for Europe. This inventory uses the GRAMED database and may also be a contribution in order to update this database. GRAMED turned out to be a meaningful informative tool to support marine assessment‐related activities. Most assessments are regional, and national assessments are harder to access (including because of language issues). The report also gave an insight on the evolution over the last five years and included a first attempt to provide a gap analysis across the four regional European seas (most information being on the Mediterranean and the Atlantic; the Black Sea trailing behind). Regional assessments are made available by OSPAR, the Black Sea Commission, UNEP/MAP, HELCOM and UNEP/MAP PlanBleu. Regional Seas Conventions have regular assessments. Additionally, the EU’s MSFD will be an important contribution. Global, supra‐regional assessments carried out include reports from ICES, ESF Marine Board, EEA and UNEP. However, considering the great differences between regions in terms of the quality, quantity and availability of

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information, socioeconomic setting and environmental conditions, the achievement of comparability is particularly challenging.

25. In the light of the information provided, the following commonalities between assessments and broad weaknesses can however be identified over the last five years:

a) No assessment can be considered fully exhaustive as they typically capture a particular understanding of complexes issues at a certain time. The capacity to produce and update thematic (narrow) assessment reports on a regularly basis is therefore of key importance. The Regional Seas Conventions (OSPAR, Helsinki, Barcelona and Bucharest Conventions) gave rise to regional action plans which give specific goals and targets for the regional sea and produce regular assessment mechanisms;

b) Assessment capacity is generally strong throughout Europe and many high quality updated assessments have been produced recently. Integrated (broad) assessments are available for the four regional seas reflecting progresses in addressing more deeply effects of multiple stressors combining at global and regional scales;

c) Most of the assessments surveyed had stated objectives while a clear conceptual framework of the assessment approach is often not specified;

d) Assessments generally well identify main drivers of human development and associated pressures that, along with natural processes, affect the state and trends of the marine environment. However, fewer still fully incorporate multiple pressures from the anthropogenic use of the marine resources and related cross‐effects. Thematic assessments (pressure‐based) are prevailing and quantitative impact assessments of multiple human threats and related impacts on marine habitats have rarely been conducted at a regional level. Regional assessments of human‐driven impacts may consider that threats on habitats do not act in isolation;

e) An ecosystem approach to the management of the marine environment has received considerable attention over recent years. However, integration level of socioeconomic issues appears to be still weak in spite of some recent progress;

f) Assessment of impacts of human activities is still too much based on qualitative information. In particular, gaps in the knowledge related to biodiversity and habitats appear to be a major constraint;

g) A major challenge facing the regional assessment practice is the lack of information on both cumulative and synergistic effects. For instance, climate variations and ecosystem perturbations are both key threatening processes driving the regional loss in biodiversity. Yet too little is known about synergistic effects on biological populations due to the complexity of underlying processes;

h) In order to move forward, the report identified that more regional

comparability is needed to reduce the lack of comparable data, add

cumulative effects and clarify the definition of assessment, regionally.

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26. Representatives from HELCOM were interested in knowing how to add assessments to GRAMED. PEGASO added that an assessment on Mediterranean and Black seas is being prepared by March 2013, mainly to support ICES protocol for the Mediterranean.

Assessments of the marine and coastal environment in the Mediterranean (Mr. Michael Angelidis, UNEP/MAP)

27. Mr. Angelidis gave an overview of the history and goals of the

Mediterranean Action Plan, as well as the Barcelona Convention and Protocols.

Both have an important assessment component and build their work on the

ecosystem approach. Initially the target was mainly pollution, but more recently,

assessments were made on biodiversity and marine protected areas, maritime

traffic and accidents, sustainable development, integrated coastal zone

management and cleaner production and consumption.

The initial assessment of ECAP is participatory, peer‐reviewed and scheduled for 2012. It will determine priorities, determine available information and identify gaps in research and monitoring, including economic value.

COP 17 Decision (2012) of the Barcelona Convention decided on a socioeconomic analysis, which has as an overall objective to elaborate a common understanding and to foster a broad appropriation by Mediterranean riparian countries of the social and economic dimensions involved in the ECAP implementation. Monitoring is done on the state of the marine environment and trends, nutrients, eutrophication, hazardous substances in sediment and biota.

Further assessments in the Mediterranean region published recently are on food security and food safety, human activities (including shipping and tourism) impacting on the marine environment, maritime traffic, accidents, sustainable development, integrated coastal zone management, cleaner production and consumption. The goal is to build synergies between the ECAP and both the MSFD and the Regular Process.

The Socioeconomic Dimension (for Global Reporting and Assessment of the state of the Marine Environment) (Mr. Paulo Augusto Nunes, CIESM)

28. Mr. Nunes gave a presentation on natural capital accounting. The socioeconomic dimension of (marine) biodiversity consists of three pillars: recognizing value (a feature of all human societies and communities), demonstrating value (in economic/monetary terms to support decision making), capturing value (introduce mechanisms that incorporate the values of ecosystems into decision making). The presentation showed that oceans and European regional seas are responsible for the provision of a wide range of goods and services and therefore source of socio‐economic value, whether or not they enter the marketplace. Mr. Nunes stated that conventional measures of national economic performance (e.g.: GDP growth) fail to reflect these natural capital assets and their benefits flows.

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All countries rely on a system of national accounts, but some information is missing or invisible: depletion and degradation of marine natural capital, offshore oil & gas and minerals, seagrass coverage, fish stocks, marine genetic materials, water column, environmental degradation coastal pollution, loss of coastal tourism productivity, ecosystem services, carbon storage (blue carbon), coastal flood mitigation, marine cultural heritage and seascapes. Better indicators for monitoring sustainable development/long‐term growth are needed, as well as better management of natural capital for growth & poverty reduction (especially in the context of socioeconomic diversity of the Mediterranean Sea) and better management of natural capital for growth & poverty reduction (especially in the context of socioeconomic diversity of the Mediterranean Sea). Questions that need to be answered are, amongst others: how to weigh tradeoffs among competing users, for example transport industry, off‐shore oil and gas industry, fishermen and coastal tourism; how much should be invested in natural capital, such as marine protected areas; how to make ecotourism work for the poor; how to balance marine spatial planning, including tourism, fisheries and other ecosystem services like carbon storage or water quality.

The United Nations’ System of Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA) developed over the past twenty years, is a comprehensive accounting framework that links the use of natural capital by the economy and the impact of the economy on natural capital. It establishes agreed methodology for material natural resources, but more work is needed for the ‘more difficult to measure’ natural capital— ecosystems.

In partnership with the World Bank, CIESM is working to implement natural capital accounting in countries along the North and South shores, incorporate natural capital accounts in policy analysis and marine spatial development planning, increase scientific credibility by developing a methodology for ecosystem accounting for the SEEA with natural scientists, promote global adoption of natural capital accounting beyond the pilot countries. Experience in the field of ocean ecosystems is, nevertheless, lacking.

29. Participants agreed there is a clear interest in this type of approach as a

way to go beyond the traditional framework and discussed the links with CBD,

TEEB, EUROSTAT and MSFD. It was also noted that this methodology may be

implemented in Small Island Developing States.

Activities of HELCOM in assessing the Baltic Sea (Ms. Maria Laamanen, HELCOM)

30. Ms. Laamanen gave a brief overview of the tasks and contracting parties

of the Helsinki Convention, for which HELCOM is the governing body.

According to HELCOM, the Baltic Sea has both natural and monetary value. In

2007, the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan was adopted at ministerial level. It

uses the ecosystem‐based approach to management of human activities, sets

ecological goals and objectives, adopts measures and actions for: eutrophication,

hazardous substances, maritime activities, biodiversity and nature conservation,

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National Implementation Programmes and has a specific section addressing

development of thematic integrated assessment tools and methodologies. From

2003 to 2007, HELCOM performed the HELCOM Initial Holistic Assessment of

the Ecosystem Health of the Baltic Sea, which gives an overview of the several

different assessments and indicator fact sheets of the status of the Baltic Sea, its

ecosystem health, anthropogenic pressures (via the Baltic Sea Pressure Index),

protected areas (10% is protected, but ecological coherence is not yet reached)

and provides an economic analysis. It serves as a baseline for assessing the

effectiveness of the implementation of the measures of the HELCOM BSAP in

order to determine how far we are from reaching good environmental status.

Quality Status Report 2010 (Mr. Stephen Malcolm, Defra/Cefas UK)

31. Mr. Malcolm gave an overview of OSPAR’s objectives, principles,

geographic maritime area, contracting parties. He gave a detailed explanation

about OSPAR’s Quality Status Report (QSR, launched at the Ministerial Meeting

in 2010 in Bergen), which includes an analysis of the hydrodynamics, chemistry,

habitats and biota, of the impact of humans over space and time against this

background of natural variability, of the cumulative and relative impact of all the

human pressures on the marine environment, an evaluation of the effectiveness

of the measures taken, as well as identifies gaps and priorities for action and

serves as a basis for further implementing the ecosystem approach. It also wishes

to cover, as far as possible, the initial assessment requirements of the EU Marine

Strategy Framework Directive. After detailing its key findings, Mr. Malcolm

explained the different phases that were undertaken in order to arrive at the QSR

(preparation & groundwork, development, compilation & drafting, stakeholder

consultation, scientific peer review, publication, QSR launch) and the goals it

reached (recommendations for policy revision, pressures dropped, fisheries

managed more sustainably, species protected, etc..

What is ICES and what can ICES provide to the UN Regular Process? (Mr. Jörn Schmidt, ICES)

32. Mr. Schmidt gave an overview of what the International Council for the

Exploration of the Sea (ICES) is and what it can provide to the Regular Process.

He illustrated that ICES is an international scientific community that is relevant,

responsive, sound, and credible, concerning marine ecosystems and their relation

to humanity and aims to ensure that the best available science is accessible for

decision‐makers in order for them to make informed choices on the sustainable

use of the marine environment and ecosystems, including on oceanography,

contaminants, phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish, mammals and sea birds,

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integrated physical‐biological modeling, economic‐ecological modeling, maritime

systems analysis, marine spatial planning, stock assessment methods,

biodiversity science and advice, climate change, the Marine Strategy Framework

Directive. ICES has memoranda of understanding with the EU, NEAFC, NASCO,

OSPAR and HELCOM and collaborates, a.o. with PICES, CIESM,

UNESCO/IOC, SCOR, FAO and CBD. ICES covers 200 fish stocks, studied over

100 years of catch statistics, published status reports of several issues and did

integrated ecosystem assessments in the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the Western

Waters and the North West Atlantic. Additionally, ICES has a specific working

group on data and information management and provides training programmes.

33. Participants concluded that ICES compiles, archives, and makes available

a vast amount of information to the public.

Agenda Item 9 – Presentation of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD)

Marine Strategy Framework Directive: the initial assessment and its links to the UN Regular Process (Mr. David Connor, EC, DG Environment)

34. Mr. Connor presented on the MSFD’s initial assessment and its link with

the Regular Process. The overall objective of MSFD is to achieve or maintain

Good Environmental Status (GES) of all EU marine waters by 2020, as well as the

adoption of an ecosystem‐based and integrated approach to the management of

all human activities which have an impact on the marine environment.

In order to determine what a GES is, a number of descriptors are defined, such as biological diversity, the absence of presence of non‐indigenous species, commercial fish & shellfish, food webs, eutrophication, sea‐floor integrity, hydrography, contaminants, contaminants in seafood, litter and energy, including underwater noise. The initial assessment will describe the characteristics and status of the marine waters, do a pressures and impacts analysis, an economic & social analysis, an ecosystem characteristics analysis, a uses and activities analysis, and study the cost of degradation. The main steps of the MSFD are: the initial assessment (IA) of current environmental status of EU marine waters, the determination of GES, the establishment of environmental targets and associated indicators, a monitoring programme for ongoing assessment and regular updating of targets, a programme of measures to achieve or maintain GES, review of the different steps.

Mr. Connors states that there are some key areas of convergence between the MSFD and the Regular Process: the ecosystem approach is central in the MSFD and in Part III of the UN Regular process outline; descriptors 3, 4, 8 under MSFD are relevant to Part IV (food security and food safety) of the UN Regular process outline; assessments of impacts of activities under MSFD could feed in Part V of the UN Regular Process outline; broad and predominant habitat types are

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assessed under MSFD (Annex 3 , table 1) and the Regular Process in a similar way; throughout the MSFD, attention is given to economic and social factors, as in the UN Regular Process and reflections on the costs of environmental degradation can help contribute to Chapter 47. Nevertheless, there are also gaps and differences in approach with regard to the geographical coverage and the content subdivision (UN Regular Process – sector by sector (‘individual’ pressures and impacts) vs. MSFD – pressure by pressure (cumulative pressure across activities)).

35. Participants agreed that the MSFD initial assessment will be an extremely

useful and helpful input to the Regular Process. The challenge will be to

synthesize the amount of information in a comprehensive, correct, yet digestible

manner.

Agenda Item 10 – Overview of the Existing Assessments in the Region

36. Mr. Alan Simcock, Group of Experts, gave an overview of the information

and assessments in the region (North Atlantic, the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean

and the Black Sea) presented on the first day of the Workshop and his first

analysis based hereon:

a) It is clear that there is a great richness of information. A lot effort already

went into assessing the state of the oceans and seas in the area. This

means that the extra expenditure of the Regular Process will be relatively

modest in order. He stressed the importance of ICES in relation to

fisheries and listed the GRAMED as an important starting point;

b) With regard to the assessments done in the United States, Mr. Simcock

was struck by the thoroughness of economic material of traditional kind.

He stressed the need to understand the metadata;

c) With regard to Canada, he diverse set of problems the country has to

address and the need to develop the existing information were

highlighted;

d) The IOC report is extremely comprehensive, covers enormous amounts of

information and will be of great use to the Regular Process;

e) Major progress has been made in the Mediterranean, mainly on the

northern, but also on the southern shore. Capacity‐building will be of

great importance to this area;

f) The CIESCM presentation covered completely new territory and to the

question was to what extent the ideas on environmental accounting could

be integrated into the Regular Process. The first round of the Regular

Process might be too soon;

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g) HELCOM has taken forward a whole range of interesting issues and

assessments, which have to be looked at carefully;

h) OSPAR shows how a wider range of issues can be covered and how this

can be underpinned by detailed work;

i) ICES has an amazing depth of data for three of the five regions and

showed that the Regular Process will have to think carefully about data

management. ICES also has a role to play with regard to capacity‐

building;

j) Within the EU, the MSFD has been developing alongside the

development of the Regular Process. The convergence will definitely be

beneficial.

37. Mr. Simcock discerned six action points: 1) there is a need to update the

GRAMED with the Regular Process information; 2) there is a need to check the

various assessments against the outline; 3) it needs to be determined which

assessments are relevant for which chapter; 4) it will need to be decided how to

achieve integration; 5) the Regular Process needs to reflect on data management

and data access (need for transparency and guidance to users); 6) capacity

building remains important.

Agenda Item 11 to 18 – Working Groups

38. The Summaries from the three Working Groups are as follows:

A. Working Group 1: State of the Environment (Physical/Chemical/Biological Science) (Coordinator: Mr. Peter Harris, Rapporteur: Ms. Saskia Van Gaever)

A1. In addition to the list of assessments compiled by Frédéric Brochier, several others were mentioned and emphasized in a summary table, which is provided in Annex 4.

A2. Some overarching conclusions were made at the beginning of the presentation of the results of the working group:

‐ The general reports presented by the regional programmes on the first

workshop day, i.e. national reports for Marine Strategy Framework

Directive, Water Framework Directive, Habitat and Bird Directive,

OSPAR QSR 2010, the ICES cooperative reports, will be of very important

value for several chapters of the Global Oceans Assessment;

‐ There is a need to include a definition of the concept ‘ecosystem services’

in the World Ocean Assessment;

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‐ It would be very useful to include an extended glossary explaining the

concepts and technical terms;

‐ It will be important to have a cross‐check and as much compatibility as

possible between the ‘ocean’ chapter in the next IPCC report and the

World Ocean Assessment, and vice versa for the ‘climate’ information;

‐ Some important topics are missing in the current outline but should be

addressed: 1) description of the status of alien (invasive) species (alien

species are currently only included in chapter 17B related to shipping, but

there are also other sources of the introduction of alien species) ; 2)

description of the status of pollution, hazardous substances ; 3)

description of the status of debris and marine litter;

‐ An additional list of assessments in the Baltic Sea is provided in Annex 9.

B. Working Group 2: Pressures and Impacts, including Human Activities (Coordinator: Mr. Jake Rice, Rapporteur: Ms. Trine Christiansen)

‐ B1. The results of this working group are presented in Annex 5. An

additional list of assessments in the Baltic Sea is provided in Annex 9.

C. Working Group 3: Socioeconomic Aspects (Coordinator: Mr. Alan Simcock, Rapporteur: Mr. Wouter Rommens)

C1. The results of this working group are presented in Annex 6. Annex 7 presents additional EU‐based information provided by the EEA.

Agenda Item 19 – Identification of knowledge gaps

39. The identification of knowledge gaps was discussed during the presentation of the working group results.

40. Mr. Andrew Rosenberg gave an additional presentation on the Ocean Health Index:

Assessing the health of the worldʹs oceans. An Ocean Health Index to assess global marine social‐ecological systems (Mr. Andrew Rosenberg, Group of Experts)

Until now, there has been no consensus on what determines ocean health and no common metric to measure it. The Ocean Health Index focuses on goals articulated in four decades of ocean treaties and high level national and intergovernmental reports. Using indicators that measure the intensity of the most urgent ocean stressors, including climate change, ocean acidification, overfishing, habitat degradation, invasive species, loss of biodiversity, pollution and eutrophication, the Ocean Health Index will measure the status and trends of

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ocean health and its components. The index will also assess trends in remedial actions taken to conserve marine habitats. Finally, the index will relate trends in ocean health to benefits provided to people and human well‐being.

Agenda Item 21 – Plan for Short‐term and Mid‐term Capacity building for the Region and Global Perspective

Sustainable Seas: Marine assessment capacity building in a global perspective (Mr. Wouter Rommens, UNEP/GRID‐Arendal)

41. This presentation provided insight in marine assessment capacity‐building from a global perspective. Mr. Rommens presented GRID‐Arendal, a non‐profit, administratively independent institution, founded in 1989 by the Norwegian Ministry of Environment to support UNEP and other UN agencies. GRID‐Arendal’s mission is to create environmental knowledge enabling positive change, by organizing and transforming available environmental data into credible, science‐based information products, delivered through innovative communication tools and capacity‐building services targeting relevant stakeholders. Through the UNEP Shelf Programme, GRID‐Arendal assisted more than 70 developing States in making their claim for the determination of their extended continental shelves to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. Through a public‐private partnership, GRID‐Arendal managed to become the most comprehensive global geospatial and metadata inventory of marine geophysical and geological data. It also provides training. Its sustainable seas program trains in ecosystem‐based management of the EEZ and has projects with North‐South as well as South‐South expertise exchange. GRID‐Arendal sees marine assessments as an important tool to provide relevant, credible and useful information to policy‐ and decision makers and the public, to raise awareness on environmental issues, to support evidence‐based environmental management decisions and to identify gaps.

A state of the marine environment web platform was also created and is in a pilot phase.

Mr. Rommens clarified that the Sustainable Seas programme has a direct and an indirect link with the Regular Process. At the Regular Process Workshop held in Sanya, China, a statement on capacity‐building was adopted and the decision was taken to hold a capacity‐building workshop in Bangkok, Thailand from September 17 to 19 2012 to strengthen and promote regional cooperation towards the Regular Process, to assist, as an initial attempt, in capacity building of NOWPAP, COBSEA and WESTPAC member countries to conduct the integrated marine assessments, to contribute to the Regular Process through the provision of an initial ‘regional trial assessment’ and of a new regional methodology for multi‐disciplinary marine assessments.

Indirectly, GRID‐Arendal contributes to the Regular Process by building capacity on assessments of impacts of the off‐shore oil industry under the Abidjan Convention.

GRID‐Arendal has templates for the development of marine assessments (pressures, data handling, output, outreach and communication, policy relevance.

October 2012 | 17

42. Participants were very interested in the different capacity‐building projects and schemes.

Agenda Item 22 and 23 – Presentation on Data Standardisation

Data standardization and Data access (Mr. Peter Pissierssens, UNESCO/IOC‐IODE)

43. After an introduction on IODE, Mr. Pissierssens showed participants, through concrete examples, what the use and necessity of standards is. He linked the importance of standards with quality and quality control and quality management frameworks. IODE published over 60 manuals on quality control and standardization. Mr. Pissierssens illustrated the importance of standardization and quality management for the Regular Process and warned that this work will still have to be done, as for existing assessments metadata are not always available and data provenance and quality are not always known.

Mr. Pissierssens also explained about the IODE’s Ocean Data Portal, which facilitates and promotes the exchange and dissemination of marine data and services and provides the full range of processes including data discovery, access, and visualization.

The presentation raised questions with regard to the accessibility of meta‐data (how to enforce policies) and intellectual property rights.

44. The participants agreed that data standardization, as well as accessibility and storage will be of the utmost importance for the Regular Process’s quality.

Agenda Item 25 – Conclusion and recommendations

Summary of proceedings

45. Mr. Alan Simcock presented a short overview of the output of the workshop. He highlighted the following points:

(a) The Workshop had had two aims: to bring out what data is available

for the assessment of the North Atlantic, the North Sea, the Baltic, the

Mediterranean and the Black Sea, from the environmental, economic

and social points of view; and to start a dialogue between those

charged with carrying out the First Global Integrated Marine

Assessment and the regional experts;

(b) Both aims had been substantially achieved. The summaries

presented by the working groups showed that they had identified a

large range of material which would be essential for the assessment

work. Working Group 2 had not had sufficient coverage to use this

approach in full, but had illuminated very clearly the approach that

18 | October 2012

will be needed to analyse pressures and impacts and relate them to

other material;

(c) The output of the Workshop would provide an invaluable guide to

the data, showing what periods it covered and where it could be

accessed;

(d) The material identified would thus be very helpful in developing the

frameworks of the chapters within the approved Outline, and the

issues identified in the Outline within each chapter. Developing

these frameworks would be an early task for the Group of Experts, in

collaboration with the lead drafters for individual chapters or groups

of chapters;

(e) Starting the dialogue between regional experts and the Group of

Experts of the Regular Process was not enough in itself. Means

needed to be found to take that dialogue forward. The website of the

Regular Process, when it was eventually started, would provide one

means for this. Other, less formal, ways may also be useful.

46. Subsequent discussion touched upon the following questions:

(a) Should the North Atlantic, the North Sea, the Baltic, the Mediterranean and

the Black Sea be treated as a single region? The general opinion was that

the enclosed and semi‐enclosed seas to the east of the Atlantic all had

specific features which meant that they needed to be considered

separately. It would be confusing if general conclusions were sought

to be applied to them as a whole. Whether the North Atlantic could

be treated as a single region depended very much on the approach to

the exposition in the assessment of large ocean areas: either treating it

as a single area or dividing it east and west were possible. It would

be important, however, to keep in mind the need for simplification:

the World Ocean Assessment needed to deliver a clear set of

messages;

(b) How might drafting teams best work together? There was general

agreement that the website of the Regular Process would be central to

this work, and that the sooner that this was available the better. The

Guidance for contributors should make clear the role of the Lead

Member of the Group of Experts and the Lead Drafter for ensuring

that all members of each drafting team were fully involved. There

was wide support for enabling drafting teams to meet for face‐to‐face

discussions;

(c) How should the transfer of skills be managed? There was general

agreement that capacity building was needed within the area covered

by the Workshop, as well as the region providing a source of

knowledge for other regions. Transfers of skills within the region

October 2012 | 19

were needed both from north to south (particularly within the

Mediterranean) and also from west to east;

(d) How could partnerships be developed? There was general agreement that

it was important to involve both the regional seas organizations and

the regional fisheries management bodies. Steps should be taken to

keep them collectively informed of progress.

47. The Co‐Chairs indicated that they would revise the draft in the light of those comments and any further comments that were received and, with the aid of the other members of the Group of Experts who were present, establish a final summary report.

Agenda Item 26 – Means of Communication and Follow‐up of the Results of the Workshop

48. Mr. Peter Harris gave a report on the work which was in hand to provide a website for the Regular Process. The website is aiming at State representatives, as well as researchers and the general public. It was created as a dynamic, attractive and comprehensive portal for users of and contributors to the Regular Process. Currently, the resolution of some technical issues (where the website will be hosted and how the secretariat of the Regular Process can manage it) is awaited to launch it.

49. The Workshop discussed possibilities for improving communications and networking within the North Atlantic, the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea on reporting on, and assessment of, the marine environment.

Participants stressed the need to make the Regular Process information widely available. A suggestion was made to use social networks to the extent possible. The website will serve as the number one tool for outreach and will need to be kept active and up to date.

The flyer for the recruitment of experts for the Pool of Experts was also showed. It will be important to recruit many quality experts for the pool.

Ms. Rosenboom of DOALOS clarified that States have to nominate those experts, via their Permanent Missions to the United Nations in New York, but that experts do not necessarily need to have the citizenship of the State that nominates them.

50. Closing remarks were made by Ms. Annebeth Rosenboom, on behalf of DOALOS, and by Ms. Sophie Mirgaux, on behalf of the host State.

20 | October 2012

Annex 1

Workshop for the North Atlantic, the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, under the auspices of the United Nations, in support of the Regular Process for global reporting and assessment of the state of the marine environment, including socio-economic aspects

Agenda

START FINISH ACTIVITY LED BY

Wednesday 27 June

08:30 09:00 Registration of participants and welcome coffee

09:00 09:15 Opening ceremony (15 min)

Representative of Belgian

Government

Representative of

DOALOS

09:15 09:30 Election of co-chairs and start of the Workshop (15 min) Representative of Belgian

Government

09:30 09:40 Organisation of the Workshop (10 min) Co-chair – Plenary

09:40 09:45 Adoption of the Agenda (5 min) Co-chair – Plenary

09:45 10:00 Presentation on the Regular Process according to the

mandate from the United Nations (15 min)

Representative of

DOALOS

10:00 10:20 Presentation on the aims, scope and expected output of

the Workshops (20 min)

Alan Simcock

(Group of Experts)

10:20 10:40 General comments on the tasks that the Workshop has

to carry out (20 min) Plenary discussion

10:40 11:00 Coffee break (20 min)

11:00 11:30 Presentation on the outline of the first global integrated

marine assessment (30 min)

Peter Harris

(Group of Experts)

11:30 12:00 Process of drafting the first global integrated marine

assessment and answer session (30 min)

Chul Park

(Group of Experts)

12:00 12:30 Questions and answers (30 min) Plenary discussion

12:30 14:00 Lunch break (1.5 h)

14:00 15:30 Presentations of regional programmes (1.5 h) Regional organisations

22 | October 2012


15:50 16:25 Presentations of regional programmes (35 min) Regional organisations

16:25 16:45 Questions and answers (20 min) Plenary discussion

16:45 17:00 Presentation of Marine Strategy Framework Directive

(15 min)

David Connor

(EC)

17:00 17:15

Overview of the existing assessments in the region

(based on AoA finding and information submitted by

States or regional organizations) (15 min)

Georg Martin

(Group of Experts)

17:15 17:30 Question and answer session (15 min) Plenary discussion

17:30 End of the first session

Thursday 28 June

09:00 09:10 Organisation of, and allocation to, Working groups (10

min) Co-chair – Plenary

09:10 10:40 Work in working groups (1.5 h)


11:00 12:30 Continuation of work in working groups (1.5 h)

12:30 14:00 Lunch break (1.5 h)

14:00 15:30 Continuation of work in working groups (1.5 h)


15:50 17:00 Continuation of work in working groups (80 min)

17:00 18:00 Drafting summary of the discussion (60 min)

18:00 End of the second session

Friday 29 June

09:00 10:40 Presentations and discussion

of the outcomes of the working groups (1.5 h) Plenary discussion


11:00 11:40 Presentations and discussion

of the outcomes of the working groups (40 min) Plenary discussion

11:40 12:30 Identification of knowledge gaps session (50 min) Plenary discussion

12:30 14:00 Lunch break (1.5 h)

14:00 14:40 Plan for short-term and mid-term capacity building for the

region and global perspective (40 min)

Wouter Rommens

(UNEP/GRID-Arendal)

14:40 15:10 Presentation on data standardisation (30 min) Peter Pissiersens (IODE)

15:10 15:30 Question and answer session (20 min) Plenary discussion


15:50 16:10 Conclusion and recommendations (20 min) Alan Simcock

(Group of Experts)

16:10 16:30 Means of communication and follow-up of the results of

the workshop (20 min)

Alan Simcock

(Group of Experts)

16:30 17:30 Closure of the Workshop and Reception (1h)

List of Participants

Mr. Acosta Triana Sebastian

Colombia

Embassy of Colombia in Brussels

[email protected]

Ms. Al‐Hail Mariam

State of Quatar

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Legal researcher

[email protected]

Mr. Angelidis Michael

UNEP/MAP

UNEP/MAP

MED POL Programme Officer

[email protected]

Mr. Bakke Gunnstein

Norway

Directorate of Fisheries

Senior Legal Adviser

[email protected]

Mr. Barbière Julian

UNESCO/IOC

UNESCO‐IOC

Programme Specialist

[email protected]

Ms. Best Barbara

Canada

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Barbara.best@dfo‐mpo.gc.ca

Ms. Breton Françoise

Spain

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Manager of the EU FP7 project PEGASO

[email protected]

Mr. BjØrge Arne

Norway

Institute of Marine Research

Senior Scientist

[email protected]

Mr. Brochier Frederic

UNESCO/IOC

UNESCO‐IOC

Consultant

[email protected]

Ms. Cassiers Nathalie

Belgium

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Adviser

[email protected]

Annex 2

Ms. Christiansen Trine

EEA

European Environment Agency

Head of group for Marine Environment

[email protected]

Mr. Connor David

EC

European Commission

Policy Officer

[email protected]

Mr. Giorgi Giordano

Italy

ISPRA ‐ The Institute for Environmental Protection and Research

Member State Italy Representative

[email protected]

Mr. Harris Peter

GoE

Geoscience Australia

[email protected]

Mr. Hartmut Heinrich

Germany

Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency

Director, Head of Marine Physics Department

[email protected]

Ms. Inniss Lorna

GoE Joint Coordinator of Group of Experts

Coastal Zone Management Unit

Deputy Director, Joint Coordinator of GoE

[email protected]

Mr. Karup Henning Peter

Denmark

Danish Nature Agency

Senior Advisor

[email protected]

Mr. Korpinen Samuli

HELCOM

Helsinki Commission

Project Manager

[email protected]

Ms. Koss Rebecca

UK

School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool

Post Doctorate Researcher

[email protected]

Ms. Laamanen Maria

HELCOM

Helsinki Commission

Professional Secretary

[email protected]

Mr. Lilje‐Jensen Jorgen

Denmark

MFA

Minister Counsellor

[email protected]

Ms. Maillet Aurore

EC

European Commission

Policy Officer

[email protected]

Mr. Malcolm Stephen

UK

Cefas/Defra

Chief Advisor Marine Environment

[email protected]

Mr. Mannaart Michael

EUCC

Coastal and Marine Union

Executive Director

[email protected]

Ms. Meacle Mary

Ireland

Department of Environment, Community and Local Government

Ministry delegate

[email protected]

Ms. Mirgaux Sophie

Belgium

FPS Environment, Belgium

Legal Expert

[email protected]

Ms. Nilsen Hanne‐Grete

EC

European Commission

Policy Officer

hanne‐[email protected]

Mr. Nunes Paulo Augusto

CIESM

Mediterranean Science Commission

Head Marine Economics Research Program

[email protected]

Ms. Onofri Laura

CIESM

Mediterranean Science Commission

Marine Economic Policy Analyst

[email protected]

Mr. Park Chul

GoE

Department of Oceanography, Chungnam National University

Professor

[email protected]

Mr. Pichot Georges

Belgium

Management Unit of the North Sea Mathematical Models

Head MUMM

[email protected]

Mr. Pissiersens Peter

UNESCO/IOC

UNESCO‐IOC

Head, IOC Project Office for IODE, Oostende

[email protected]

Mr. Rabaut Marijn

Belgium

Federal Government

North Sea Advisor for Belgian Minister of North Sea Johan Vande Lanotte

[email protected]

Mr. Rice Jake

GoE

Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Government of Canada

jake.rice@dfo‐mpo‐gc.ca

Mr. Rommens Wouter

UNEP‐GRID

UNEP/GRID‐Arendal

Capacity Development Consultant

[email protected]

Mr. Rosenberg Andrew

GoE

Conservation International

Chief Scientist

[email protected]

Ms. Rosenboom Annebeth

DOALOS

DOALOS

Senior Legal Officer

[email protected]

Ms. Royo Gelabert Eva

EEA

European Environment Agency

Senior Advisor, Marine Ecosystem Assessments

[email protected]

Mr. Sauzade Didier

France

MAP/RAC/Blue Plan

Marine Programme Officer

[email protected]

Mr. Schmidt Jörn

Germany

Christian‐Albrechts University of Kiel

Senior Scientist

[email protected]‐kiel.de

Mr. Simcock Alan

GoE

Joint Coordinator of Group of Experts

[email protected]

Mr. Skjoldal Hein Rune

Norway

Institute of Marine Research

Senior Scientist

[email protected]

Mr. Suárez‐de Vivero Juan L

Spain

University of Serville, Department Human Geography

Professor

[email protected]

Ms. Torrado Soto Jacklyn Joelle

Colombia

Embassy of Colombia in Brussels

[email protected]

Mr. van der Veeren Rob

Netherlands

Rijkswaterstaat Waterdienst

Economic Advisor of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment

[email protected]

Ms. Van Gaever Saskia

GoE

FPS Environment, Belgium

Marine Expert

[email protected]

Ms. Vasileva‐Veleva Emilia

IAEA

IAEA Environment Laboratories

Section Head

E.Vasileva‐[email protected]

Ms. von Quillfeldt Cecilie

Norway

Norwegian Polar Institute

Seniod Adviser

[email protected]

2 | October 2012

Annex 4

Brussels RP Workshop, Biophysical Data Working Group

The task of the working group was to provide an inventory of the assessments that have been conducted in the North Atlantic, Baltic Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea Regions that contain biophysical information. Biophysical data are necessary to assess the condition of benthic and pelagic ecosystems and the services they provide, as well as to help quantify human impacts on the environment resulting from marine industries, land‐se interactions and climate change. Biophysical data include, but are not limited to, oceanographic (waves, tides, currents, sea ice cover, chlorophyll, Temp. Sal., DO, nutrients, etc.; observations and modelling), meteorological (observations and modelling), bathymetry, seafloor substrate and benthos characteristics (seabed samples, video and acoustic data), sediment geochemistry (sediment composition, including anthropogenic pollutants), satellite and aerial remotely sensed data, river discharge data plus any other type of biophysical data used in making environmental assessments.

The working group went through each chapter of the World Ocean Assessment report outline and took note of existing assessments that have been carried out containing biophysical information in each of the four broad geographic regions. Special attention was given to assessments that are not included in the GRAMED database, either assessments carried out prior to 2008 that were overlooked or assessments that have been carried out since 2008. In cases where the working group was unable to identify any assessment relative to the subject of a given chapter, then existing data sets were listed. In this way a gap analysis was carried out, identifying areas lacking in assessments and/or available relevant data. Finally the capacity building needs for the regions were considered in relation to each chapter and each region.

NORTH ATLANTIC

Chapter Existing Assessments (where no assessments exist, available data)

Knowledge Gaps and Capacity Building Needs

Comments

Chapter 3. Scientific understanding of ecosystem services

Overview of the state of scientific understanding of ecosystem services, including data collection, information management, differences between different parts of the world and research needs.

UK national ecosystem assessment 2011

and 2010 (uknea.unep‐wcmc.org)

CP2 ‐ chartingprogress.defra.gov.uk) Scotlands atlas ‐ http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/

2011/03/16182005/0

MSFD national initial assessments (for all

chapters)

ICES cooperative reports, working group

reports (for all chapters)

QSR 2010 report (all chapters) Danish assessment reports

2003 Ecosystem Report ICES Advice book ICES – ecosystem overview Norwegian Seas (Barents Sea) Assessments

MAREANO program (Norway)

Chapter 4. The oceans’ role in the hydrological cycle

4 A. interactions seawater and freshwater; changes in ice sheets and glaciers, dam‐building, ice coverage, sea level changes.

4 B. ocean warming, sea‐level change

4 C. Chemical composition of seawater:

CP2 ‐ chartingprogress.defra.gov.uk Scotlands atlas ‐ http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/

2011/03/16182005/0

OSPAR QSR 2010 Ocean Climate Report ICES (annually,

including Baltic Sea)

Climate change report ICES (cooperative

report) 2011

October 2012

nutrient content

4 F. Heat transportation, circulation patterns, oceanic oscillations (eg. El Niño).

Monitoring report (Norwegian and

Barents Sea, annually)

Marine morphology dataset (WFD)

Recent literature on Greenland ice sheet Arctic Council reports and assessments

MyOcean FP7 (hydrodynamics) (research

project)

Chapter 5. Sea/air interaction

5 A. atmospheric fluxes concentration of oxygen and carbon.

5 B. Coal industries.

5 C. Meteorological phenomena

5 D. Ocean acidification

Report CRR290 (ICES) Outcome Monaco meeting on Ocean

acidification 2010

SOLAS project solas‐int.org Arctic Council assessments

Chapter 6. Primary production, cycling of nutrients, surface layer and plankton

6 A. Global distribution of primary production, variability and resilience changes (eg. ultra‐violet radiation from ozone‐layer changes).

6 B. Surface layer and plankton, variations in plankton species.

Annual reports on status of continuous plankton surveys (SAHFOS‐UK)

ICES assessments (integrated working

group for North Seas) (working group on

ecosystem functioning)

Arctic Council Norway

Remote‐sensing community

Chapter 7. Ocean‐sourced carbonate production

Atolls and beaches –impacts of acidification.

Bermuda Information on carbonate beaches (Scotland – corals)

Data Gap?

Chapter 34. Scale of marine biological diversity

Main gradients of species, communities and habitats.

Arctic Council ABA (2013) Danish report/mapping exercise of habitats

in North Sea

Strategic initiative on biodiversity (ICES, report available?)

European fauna and flora Directives OSPAR ICG COBAM (Biodiversity Advice

Manual)

OSPAR QSR 2010

Chapter 35. Extent of assessment of marine biological diversity

Proportion of major groups of species and habitats in different regions that are assessed on a systematic basis for status, trends and threats.

a. Coastal rock benthic habitats

b. Coastal sediment habitats,

c. Shelf rock biogenic reef habitats

d. Shelf sediment habitats

e. Bathyal and abyssal habitats

f. Water column habitats

Census of Marine Life

http://www.coml.org/

European Water Framework Directive

(coastal habitats)

Marine Strategy Framework Directive

reports

Natura2000 reports

OSPAR QSR CP2 ‐ chartingprogress.defra.gov.uk Infomar seabed mapping (Irish EEZ)

MARIANO program and dataset

SEAPOP seabird program (mapping and

status)

EIA for industrial offshore activities Cooperative research report CRR288

(2007) (ICES)

GEOHAB Atlas

Seamounts

FAO report on VMEs

CBD report on EBSAs

October 2012

EUNIS level 2

Zooplankton status report ICES Integrated assessment working group

reports (ICES)

Literature on habitats of Mid‐Atlantic

Ridge

INTERRIDGE program

Coastal seabed classification of ICES CRR286

Seabirds CRR258 (ICES report) MAR‐ECO North and Mid Atlantic

http://www.mar‐eco.no/

ACES project Norwegian program on cold‐water

corals

HERMES project http://www.eu‐

hermes.net/

SAC special areas of conservation (Natura2000)

Chapter 36. Overall status of major groups of species and habitats

Summary, by major group and marine region, of the status, trends and threats, including the cumulative effects of pressures, shown by those assessments.



Arctic Council ACIA reports (e.g. sea ice habitat)

Wadden Sea Treaty assessments (Common

Wadden Sea Secretariat)

Ramsar Convention





Coral (and other biogenic) reefs

Hydrothermal vents & cold seeps

Kelp forests

Mangroves, salt marsh and other macro‐vegetation areas

Migratory marine species

Seagrass and eel‐grass beds

Sea ice habitat

Tidal flats

Contamination !

Chapter 37‐42. Marine ecosystems, species and habitats identified as threatened, declining or otherwise in need of special protection.

Chapter 37. Coastal rock benthic habitats

FFH EU Habitats Directive (Natura2000)

IUCN assessments on species

BirdLife International

Bonn Convention

ASCOBANS

CMS

WFD and MSFD

Norwegian valuable and vulnerable

areas

Decreasing trend in‐situ observations

Biodiversity knowledge/data

Biological and environmental standards and criteria (what is good/bad?)

Chapter 38. Coastal sediment habitats

Wadden Sea

Ramsar wetlands

October 2012

Chapter 39. Shelf rock biogenic reef habitats

Chapter 40. Shelf sediment habitats

Chapter 41. Bathyal and abyssal habitats

Chapter 42. Water column habitats



Kelp forests Kelps on coast of Norway (Pollution and

Climate Control Authority, KLIF)

France national assessments (IFREMER?)


Wadden Sea Treaty

WFD UK (on salt marshes)

Bermuda

Migratory marine species ASCOBANS

National surveys of whales (IR)

EIA for wind farms (impact)

Stock assessments

BirdLife International

Bonn Convention

SCANS Surveys for Cetaceans in EU

waters

IWC (cetaceans)

ICES (seals)

Seagrass and eel‐grass beds OSPAR recommendation for protection

(reports WFD)

Wadden Sea Treaty

BALTIC SEA



Comments



Assessment of Sweden “What can the sea give us?” (Swedish Environmental Agency)




4 C. Chemical composition of seawater: nutrient content

4 F. Heat transportation, circulation patterns, oceanic oscillations (eg. El

Studies on exchange of water between Baltic

and North Sea, fauna and flora (Denmark,

Sweden, Germany) Danish Environmental

Protection Agency, SEPA

HELCOM (compilation) indicator fact sheets

Flow information from rivers and coastal

point sources (in HELCOM Pollution Load

Compilation reports and indicator fact

sheets)

BACC Assessment of climate change for the

Baltic Sea Basin

Balticseaportal.fi

October 2012

Niño). ICES on Oceans Climate

Bonus project on oil spill (including

circulation)

Assessments of nutrient input from industry

Nutrients: Baltic Nest Institute and HELCOM

assessments

(List sent by Samuli Korpinen)






BACC report and ICES CRR290 report

Swedish Meteorological Institute

IOW Status Reports (mainly oxygen)

HELCOM Acidification Report

Balticseaportal.fi

EMEP transboundary transport of air

pollutions




Paper on long‐term changes in

phytoplankton communities (1966‐2008) Olli

et al. (2011) Boreal Environmental Research

ICES Expert group on integrated assessment,

cooperative research group report 2010

CRR302

Indicator report on phytoplankton (List)

Danish assessments


Atolls and beaches –impacts of

Not Relevant

acidification.



IUCN Red list species and biotopes report by

HELCOM (2013)

Benthic Habitat Map EUSEA mapping

project


Proportion of major groups of species and habitats in the different marine regions that are assessed on a systematic basis for status, trends and threats.











Sea ice habitat (seasonal)

Anoxic bottom masses (seasonally and interannually variation – stratification)

Contamination !

IUCN Red list species and biotopes report by

HELCOM (2013)

Breeding birds by HELCOM

Check list of all macro species by HELCOM

Scientific study on micro species: Status of

biodiversity in the Baltic Sea, Henn Ojaveer

(Strategic biodiversity) PLOS One

Check ICES Expert group on integrated

assessment

GEOHAB Atlas case studies

Thermogenic methane in Danish and

Swedish waters: papers and reports under

Habitats Directive

Institute of Baltic Sea Fisheries reports

(seagrasses)

EEA summary report and WFD reports on

seagrasses and seaweeds

Wintering (migratory) seabirds report from

Nordic Council of Ministers (SOWBAS)

EIA for offshore wind farms in Germany

Check BFN (Federal Agency for Nature

Conservation) book on German waters

Habitats Directive reports (Natura2000)

HELCOM offshore macrobenthic assessment

WFD (AMBI indices)

Paper on systematic ecological approach

Rintila (2009) (on sea ice)

| October 2012

HELCOM indicator fact sheet (sea ice)

Red list IUCN assessment (fish)

ICES stock assessments

Coastal fish assessments (HELCOM)

Seal assessment HELCOM (june 2013) and

harbor porpoise assessment

IUCN assessment on harbor porpoise in

Baltic Sea

WFD and/or Habitats Directive report on salt

marshes

Swedish assessment on anoxic bottom

masses

Danish reports on anoxic deficit

BALANCE project balance‐eu.org on anoxic

waters

Thematic assessments on hazardous

substances (HELCOM)





Lack on knowledge on

connectivity between

open sea and coastal

waters

Data on spawning

grounds

Harbor porpoise

population data (in

Baltic Sea)

Impact of litter and



e. Bathyal habitats






Sea ice habitat

Contamination !

underwater noise

Need of taxonomists



IUCN Red list species and biotopes report

by HELCOM (2013)

Habitats Directive reports

German national offshore parks

Marine biosphere reserves (UNESCO)

Chapter 38. Coastal sediment habitats


MEDITERRANEAN SEA


comprehensive list of assessments in IOC analysis


Comments

| October 2012



Assessment on state of marine

environment

Sustainable development outlook

UNEP/MAP Initial integrated

assessment 2012

www.rac‐spa.org (assessment on

fisheries, MPAs,…)

www.unepmap.org (links to other

websites included)

Report Medwet (at Mediterranean

scale) (wetlands services)

Reports on seagrass meadows for

protection against coastal erosion




4 C. Chemical composition of seawater: nutrient content

4 F. Heat transportation, circulation patterns, oceanic oscillations (eg. El Niño).

UNEP/MAP Integrated assessment

2012 includes elements related to

hydrographical cycle, nutrients and

eutrophication level

EU projects f.i. SESAME

www.sesame‐ip.eu

Sea level monitoring network

(managed by ISPRA) and report on

sea level variation

EMODNET for physical parameters

and biochemistry (data)

(assessment by ISPRA, in MSFD

reports)

Operational oceanography network

MedGOOS (forecast, temperature,

information portal)

Information on deep currents, mixing

phenomena is lacking

MyOcean http://www.myocean.eu/

Ludwig 2009 Flow regimes of

rivers and river discharges of

nutrients in the Mediterranean

International Hydrographical

Organisation (information on river

flows)

WISE information system, or EEA






Reports on oxygen production and

primary production by MyOcean

Lack of accurate data on ocean

acidification (only 1 lab in France

with specific study)

Knowledge and data gap on all

topics




Reports on oxygen production and

primary production by MyOcean

(modelling included)


assessment 2012

Ligurian Sea: assessment of species

composition of phytoplankton

Check on work of IFREMER


Atolls and beaches –impacts of

| October 2012

acidification.




assessment 2012

Specific studies on biodiversity,

link with climate change by

www.rac‐spa.org

Jacques Blondel 2010: The

Mediterranean Region: general

study on Mediterranean (marine)

biodiversity (Oxford University

Press)

Reports from ISPRA (in MSFD

reports)

2002 EEA report on biodiversity

(Med) (not included in GRAMED!)

PLoS ONE Vol 5 M. Coll 2010 The

biodiversity of the Mediterranean

Sea: Estimates, Patterns and

Threats


Proportion of major groups of species and habitats in the different marine regions that are assessed on a systematic basis for status, trends and threats.



Reports for Habitats Directive 2007

Reports of ISPRA for MSFD

EUSeaMap for seabed habitats

Ligurian Sea: assessment of species

composition of phytoplankton

GEOHAB Atlas: Seagrass meadows

Possidonia oceanica; seeps in

Adriatic; submarine canyons

www.rac‐spa.org (technical

reports)

Data on deepsea habitat







Kelp forests




Contamination !







| October 2012





Reports for Habitats Directive 2007

Reports of ISPRA for MSFD

Caretta caretta studies and IUCN

Red list

UNEP/MAP Special Protected

Areas: Assessment and

prospectives 2010

Ecologically protected area:

assessment in MSFD reports (of

Italy, France, Spain)

Contamination information in


assessment 2012

Microbial pollution 2008

Atlas of wintering water birds in

Libya 2005‐2010 survey

Link between pollution or other

pressures and status of habitats or

species

Geographical gap, most analyses are

close to hotspots and coasts

Integrated monitoring program is

lacking (chemical monitoring is

sufficient, biodiversity monitoring is

poor)

Availability/communication of data

should be improved

Assessment of benthic communities,

and not‐commercially exploited fish

species

Approach/methodology/structure of

assessments is not always useful –

need for more appropriate

assessments in line with most

recently developed methodologies

Regional cooperation could be

improved (even between EU MS) –

need for common monitoring

approaches, methodologies

Chapter 38. Coastal sediment

habitats


BLACK SEA

Further information:

1. State of Environment Report 2001-2006/7 (blacksea-commission.org) Publications at Information&Resources on Black Sea Commission Website

2. Dr. Vladimir Vladymyrov (IBSS, Sebastopol, Ukraine)

([email protected])

Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2, Nakhimov av., Sevastopol, 99011, Crimea, Ukraine

Link to data center and library: http://nodc.ibss.org.ua/

| October 2012

Annex 5

Meeting report from group 2 on Human activities (Brussels, 28 June 2012)

The group discussed the chapters on human uses of the ocean: chapters 11, 12 and 17‐30 of outline. The discussions were based on viewing human activities in the context of sustainable use of marine resources.

The group started by discussing the methodological framework to be used by the drafting teams for background working papers and the chapters themselves. In particular we considered the level of importance that should be associated to the many types of assessments available (refer to figure 1 for an overview):

If available, large scale integrated assessments such as the Quality Status Reports produced by Regional Sea Conventions should be the first source of information to be used. They are discussed and quality assured by a large community of experts and States.

These integrated reports are based largely on more detailed thematic and sectoral assessments that contain more in-depth reviews of available data, analyses, and detailed background information, and have undergone quality assurance in the process of being taken up in the more comprehensive large-scale integrative reports. The drafting teams should also consult these background reports for more detailed information on topics summarized in the integrated higher-level reports.

To the extent that these sources are not able to meet the requirements of the drafting teams, the next level of information to consult would include major national initiatives (MSFD assessments, Norwegian management plans, Natura2000 reports, other national reports) should be consulted.

There is a particular need in these chapters for comprehensive literature reviews and peer reviewed scientific advice on the types of ecosystem effects likely to result from specific human activities, and on factors that affect the likelihood and severity of these effects. Such reviews and advice have been produced by ICES, by IGOs (eg. FAO, IOC, UNEP), by national processes (e.g. Norway thematic assessments, Canadian CSAS Science Advisory Reports) and reviews by prestigious scientific organisations (e.g. US National Academy reports, royal societies of UK, NL, Norway, etc).

For very specific issues not covered by any of the previous sources, or requiring more in-depth evaluation, the primary scientific literature can be consulted.

Individual environmental impact assessments can also have valuable information. Their sheer numbers make it unfeasible to use them as a primary source, but many national or IGO processes may produce roll-ups of the individual assessments, which usually are in one of the higher categories of information.

Wherever information is completely lacking for an activity and area, widely credible global pressure and impact assessments, such as the one by Helprin et al (2008) are strongly preferred as a starting point, compared to simply reporting that nothing is going on in an area, or that nothing at all is known.

Figure 1. Decision tree for the assessment of literature for the Global Oceans Assessment

Highest priority

•Large scale integrated assessment reports (like Quality Status Reports of the Regional Sea Conventions), when not available or insufficiant data use=>

Second priority

•Major reports and assessments contributing to the previous step, and/or National or IGO sectoral ecological/environmental assessment reports (like e.g. MSFD and Natura 2000 assessment reports), and overviews of sectoral impacts by National agnecies and Scietjific organisations: when not available or insufficiant data use=>

Lower priority

•Primary Scientific literature, when not available or insufficiant data use=>

Lowest priority

•Individual environmental/ecological impact assessment reports

20 | October 2012

In choosing sources, preference should be given to sources that are at a distance to the policy makers themselves. Sources produced by ICES and other IGO’s are likely to be more independent of policies.

Top level list of sources considered that would be a good starting point:

Ospar QSR

Helcom HOLAS assessment

Mediterranean UNEP‐MAP assessments

Black Sea transboundary assessment

UNEP regional seas reports.

EEA State of the Environment Assessments.

Canadian Ecosystem Overview and Assessment Reports

Norwegian integrated ecosystem assessments.

In addition to the prioritization of information sources, the group discussed possible substructures of the individual sectoral chapters. It was agreed that there would be many benefits to all the sectoral chapters using a common structure. The proposed substructure should develop from :

Subsection:

1. The nature of the human activity, capturing many of the descriptive points in the “approved report outline” (which often means an individual activity will have many sub-activities as often treated in Life Cycle Analyses [LCAs]). This subsection also contains the best available information on status and trends in the magnitude of the activity (or, when appropriate subactivities). Whenever available, management reference points should be included in reporting status and trends. Where appropriate (i.e. they are necessary for meaningful interpretation of overall trends) regional contrasts should be provided

2. Socio and economic benefits to the human activities; nature, status and trends. Guidance on content should come from report of Group 3. As relevant should be done by meaningful subcomponents and feature regional contrasts.

3. The pathways from the human activity (and where relevant its subcomponents) to its potential environmental impacts. Developed by describing pressures associated with each activity, and ecosystem components likely to be impacted by such pressures (often referred to as “pathways of effects” analyses).

4. Best information in the status and trends in the major ecosystem impacts from section 3, These should be reported relative to management reference levels when they have been set. Where appropriate regional contrasts and hot spots should be included in reporting the status and trends in impacts..

5. Integration of trends in impacts with trends in levels of the activity, its

subactivities, and the social and economic benefits from the activity (and its subactivities). Special attention to cases where the assessments being used as the basis for the chapter drew causal linked among the activity (and subactivities) and environmental trends. Regional contrasts are often necessary for meaningful integration of trends. A good discussion of what factors (environmental, socio-economic, governance, etc) might be related to differences in linkages between trends in activities, benefits and uses.

6. Capacity building needs [as per approved outline provisions]

Several additional considerations regarding the sectoral chapters we noted. In most chapters there would be a need to highlight data and monitoring needs to improve future assessments It could be helpful to organise a metadata structure for all of the assessments considered. The metadata should be selected to describe key aspects of the assessments like spatial extent, content, assessment outcomes, time perspective (trend), targets, and these should be archived in some way that would be available to readers seeking more detailed information on assessments used in the GMA, and to those preparing future assessments. Noting the practical challenge, it is still a principle that assessments in all languages should be considered.

Process

Regarding the drafting process, several group members expressed their concern about the pool of experts. Will a sufficient number of experts with the proper competences and knowledge be nominated, and regarding the availability of both time and resources, can they do their job in a proper way? Experts often have knowledge of a very specific field of science, but they do not always have the overview or interest in the overall picture. Therefore, there was a suggestion that in addition to the pool of experts, on regional bases an advisory committee could be established for the guidance of the assessment work at the regional scale. Although there were some attractive properties to this suggestion, it would have to be considered relative to the guidance and oversight functions already explicitly allocated to the Ad Hoc Working Group of the Whole and its Bureau. Also, where countries choose to provide a focal point for contact with the Group of Experts, the role of the focal point in helping to ensure the best information is accessed at regional and national levels might fulfil some of these functions.

Individual Chapters.

The breakout group concluded its work by considering each chapter individually. Taking into account the subjects presented in subsections of the approved chapter outline, and the recommended overall common substructure for each “Human Uses and Effects” chapter, the guidance to teams of authors of Working Papers and Chapters should call specific attention to particular issues that are often chapter‐specific. Our suggested points for each chapter include:

17 Shipping – value of linking to MSFD (and other) work on noise, invasive species, debris and air quality. The treatment of issues, particularly regional contrasts, might look differently if presented with impacts allocated by flag state, port state of origin, or destination port state. There is no science basis to make one allocation of impacts sounder than any other, but potentially major policy

22 | October 2012

implications. Consequently, when doing these allocations (if any) report all three options, and point out differences in non‐judgemental way – to allow States to debate which accounting is preferred for planning and poicy.

18 Ports – More focus on habitat issues that suggested by approved outline. The idea of hotspots for impacts and social and economic activities would warrant attention. This is one of several chapters where by considering lots of port‐specific impact assessments it may be possible to evaluate whether magnitude of environmental impacts scales linearly, concave or convex with scale of port activity. If this can be extended to looking a economies scale of port operations as well as scaling of impacts to operations, this could be very useful to policy makers.

19 Submarine Cables and pipelines – Look at reports to see if there is information on fates (and impacts) of displaced activities when areas removed from other uses by presence of cables and pipelines.

20 – Coastal, riverine, and atmospheric impacts – this is going to be a tremendously complex for large rivers. This will require a great deal more substructure than most other human activities chapters, and the GofE should give thought this even before reaching into the pool of experts. Many decisions what is in and what is out will be to some extent arbitrary (how far upstream) and experts working on different subsets need a coherent approach to these choices. The concept of how to set reference levels for the marine ecosystem components impacted by different coastal, riverine and atmospheric inputs needs to be discussed in the chapter. Hotspot identification and regional contrasts also need to be consistent across subcomponents of these impacts.

21 Hydrocarbon industries – Again discussion of hotspots below regional scales, and whether ecosystem impacts scale linearly or non‐linearly with scale and density of the structures would be valuable. A goo case to use to illustrate how to approach the treatment of “factors that affect the trends and scale of impacts” . Also a case where life‐cycle analyses may be particularly useful in chapter substructure (also true of some other chapters.

22 Other energy sources – the linearity of scaling of impacts to sizes of operations is particularly important here, and valuable to policy makers (what are differences in expected impacts of many small vs few large operations – also socio‐economic scaling should be discussed). Important to link to treatments of transportation, cables, and land‐based impacts.

23 Mining – intrinsically a hotspot issue, and likely necessary to have to go to national level assessments or lower in these cases.

24 Solid Waste Disposal – must be developed carefully in parallel with Chapter 20 (coastal and riverine inputs. Same issues about complexity of issues and need to discuss how reference points might be derived.

25 ‐ Marine Debris ‐ Link to Chapter 17 and 11 (lost gear). Make use of ICES‐JRC, MSFD and WDF treatments of this topic.

26 Land‐Sea physical interactions. Another one where scaling of impact to scale of

activity (and socio‐ economic returns) would be particularly valuable. Make sure

that along‐shore transport mechanisms and impacts of their disruption is

considered.

27 Tourism – One of the key chapters for evaluation of linearity or non‐linearity of scale

of impacts with scale of activity; and that scaling relative to economic returns from

the tourism. Also need to consider second‐order impacts of activities displaced from

an area because tourism has become the dominant activity. The section on factors

affect the impacts will need to be treated with special care on this topic, because

there is such a complex policy net in play.

28 Desalination

29 Marine Genetic resources: Need to guide teams to focus on ecosystem impacts and

socio‐economic returns. Steer clear of discussion of policy issues on jurisdiction and

IPR issues.

30 Marine Scientific Research DO not let this become an advertisement for needy

scientists and capacity building forever. Stick to the environmental and socio‐

economic effects of undertaking MSR. This is where emerging technologies might

best be covered.

Chapter 11 – Capture fisheries – Need and opportunity for regional comparisons. Need

again for lots of thematic substructure on all the diverse aspects what constitutes

“fishing” (gears, scale of fishery, parts of the world etc. Need careful and balanced

treatment of tradeoffs. Also link to riparian issues for anadromous fishes. Also

review impacts on genetic composition of exploited stocks. ICES and FAO

assessments very good starting points for nature of ecosystem impacts of capture

fisheries. Should be an opportunity to discuss need for greater availability of data for

future assessments.

Chapter 12 Aquaculture – Also discuss GMOs and aquaculture, disease vector potential

and reality. Another one where evaluating scale of impact to scale of operations will

be very helpful to policy uses of assessment.

Brussels RP Workshop, Working Group on Socio-economic aspects The working group on Socio‐economic aspects provided an inventory of socio‐economic assessments conducted in the North Atlantic, Baltic Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea Regions. The working group went through each chapter of the World Ocean Assessment report outline and took note of existing assessments that have been carried out containing socio‐economic information in each of the four broad geographic regions. Special attention will be given to assessments that are not included in the GRAMED database, either assessments carried out prior to 2008 that were overlooked or assessments that have been carried out since 2008.

Data and information sources on socio‐economic aspects of the marine environment for the study areas can be divided in 5 categories:

a. Documents related to the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive include the initial study documents, study reports, the compilation report (to be published in 2014). These are all available online at the EU-DG Environment website.

b. Documents on socio-economic impact studies relating to EU Legislation include studies on the impact of the MSP, ICZM and Common Agricultural Policy and the EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy. The documents are available online at the respective EU websites of DG Environment, DG Mare and DG Agricultural and Rural development.

c. Socio-economic data and information from Canada can be obtained from Statistics Canada and includes e.g. indices on well-being of coastal populations in Canada, economic data on seaweed harvest, data on employment and income of fisheries communities.

d. Specific official reports (EU and others) include reports from the International Labour Organisation, the European Maritime Safety Agency and are available online at the respective agencies.

e. Other reports from various sources include e.g. the European Science Foundation-Marine Board, etc.

Annex 6

Chapter Existing Assessments (where no assessments exist, available data) Knowledge Gaps and Capacity Building Needs

Comments


The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) provides data and reports on climate change risks for society and economy under different scenarios. Data and reports are available online at: http://www.ippc.ch

Information is available in the UK and the Netherlands on the potential impact of extreme weather on socio‐economics.

The EU PESETA project (Impacts of climate change in Europe) (http://peseta.jrc.ec.europa.eu/)

Chapter 8. Aesthetic, cultural, religious and spiritual ecosystem services derived from the marine environment

The EU PESETA project (Impacts of climate change in Europe) contains information on this (http://peseta.jrc.ec.europa.eu/).

Member states reports developed for the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) http://ec.europa.eu/environment/marine/publications/index_en.htm)

are required to provide information on social and cultural value of the oceans at the national levels (e.g. sea festivals, cultural heritage).

At this current time there is a dearth in literature available relating to aesthetic, cultural and spiritual ecosystem services. However, some funding was made available in the UK very recently for studies on these services.

26 | October 2012

Information on cultural aspects of fisheries communities are available in anthropological studies in the UK.

Chapter 11. Capture fisheries

Member states reports developed for the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) are required to provide information on economic aspects of capture fisheries (including statistical information).

UK: study on public expenditures in the fisheries sector in the UK. PEW working group and website (http://www.fishsubsidy.org) with data on subsidies (until 2007).

Canada: study on marine economy in GDP with information of fisheries sector, income of fishermen. Studies on social well‐being of coastal fishermen communities are available.

Other data and information sources include reports of the EU DG Maritime affairs developed for the Integrated Maritime Policy.

Mediterranean sea: UNEP/MAP Plan Bleu has conducted recently a socio‐economic analysis on the Fisheries and Aquaculture sectors.

Chapter 12. Aquaculture

12 A. Scale and distribution of aquaculture: locations of aquaculture activities – species cultivated – economic significance and contributions to food security.

Norway: Key figures on aquaculture are published annually.

Spain: EU research projects with information on socio‐economic aspects of the aquaculture sector in Galicia.

France: survey study on aquaculture sector.

Marine Spatial Planning projects in UK contain information on economic value of displacement costs.

Chapter 14. Seaweed and other sea‐based food

Canada has data and figures on seaweed harvest.

Brittany, France has a very large seaweed industry, harvesting and exporting seaweed to overseas markets. Ecokelp website for more information: http://www.sb‐roscoff.fr/ecokelp/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

Company which imports seaweed

28 | October 2012

from Europe and uses local seaweed in Australia for food based products: www.marinova.com.au

Chapter 15. Social and economic aspects of fisheries and sea‐based food

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) provide information on health aspects of seafood at a global scale (e.g. heavy metals).

The International Labour Organization (ILO) provides information on employment in the fisheries sector and death and injuries of fishermen.

Reports produced under the EU Common Fisheries Policy Reform contain information on employment in the fisheries sector in the EU.

Canada: data on employment and income are available for communities dependent on fisheries.

Reports developed under the EU Common Fisheries Policy Reform contain information on Distant Water Fishing Agreements. The Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) has information on fisheries in its member states. The FAO has done studies on this subject as well.

Lack of capacity to assess fish stocks is problematic in some areas.

Specific information on fishing ship building in UK is available.

Fish stock assessment do not exist for all commercial species. ICES has data of the percentage of stocks assessed.

Chapter 16. Conclusions on food security.

Reports developed under the EU Integrated Marine policy contain information on how seafood demand is likely to develop in the EU.

Chapter 17.

Shipping

The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) provides data and information on freight and ship movements.

The Arctic Council has information on the opening of the northern route and significance for shipping.

EUROSTAT has information on shipping. The IMO has data on traffic control lanes.

The OECD has information on the impact of globalization on shipping.

Information is available in the UK on marine environmental high risk areas for shipping. OSPAR has done studies on the environmental

Eurostat also has information on cargo tonnage.

Also refer to the EU policy about the new recommendations for increase in shipping movement and building of associated ports in previously untapped areas in the Black and Baltic Seas: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/strategies/2007_logistics_en.htm

30 | October 2012

impact of shipping lanes.

IMO has data and information on oil pollution from shipping.

France: studies on impact Amoco Cadiz.

EU studies on the impacts of marine invasive species (e.g. ballast water).

Eurostat has data on ship breaking. Other information sources include reports produced by EU DG MARE

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has information on employment in shipping including time series.

Mediterranean Sea: UNEP/MAP/ Plan Bleu has published on the Maritime transport of goods in the Mediterranean, with outlook to 2025

Chapter 18.

Ports

Reports developed under the EU Policy on Transeuropean Transport Networks. DG Mare and DG Transport have data and information.

Eurostat has information on short sea shipping: e.g. passenger shipping over short distances.

Canada: Statistics Canada provides information on ports, marine salvage etc.

Reports produced under the EU Port Facilities Directive provide information on port management. OSPAR has produced a report for this directive comparing recreational and commercial ports in EU.

Employment in ports: An UK study is available on the effects of mechanization on employment in ports.

Chapter 19.

Submarine cables and pipelines

OSPAR has studies on the decommissioning of cables and pipelines and on the impact of different types of cables.

UK: the “UK Charting progress 2” report contains a chapter on telecommunication.

The UNDP International Cable protection Committee has a report with

In general, there is little information available on this subject.

32 | October 2012

information.

Chapter 20.

Coastal, riverine and atmospheric inputs from land

UK: impact study on bathing water quality with indicators.

Netherlands: Cost benefit analysis of the EU Bathing Water Directive.

HELCOM: studies on impact of agricultural run‐off and emission in Baltic Sea, including social aspects.

Other sources of information include OSPAR studies on impact of nuclear emissions, the European Nitrogen Assessment and the Convention on Long‐range Transboundary Air Pollution (LATAP).

Chapter 21.

Offshore hydrocarbon industries

Sources of information:

- Effects of emissions of fossil fuel (European Environment Agency)

- The Netherlands: studies on gas extraction in waddensea. - Eurostat - Studies on carbon dioxide storage in decommissioned offshore

oil and gas fields. - Studies on the economic impacts of disasters (e.g. Piper Alfa

disaster)

Remark: it might be difficult to distinguish between data from land and water based components in extractive industries.

Chapter 22. Other marine‐

EU: Some socio‐economic data and information on marine‐based energy is published by member states in reports under the EU Marine

based energy industries

Strategy Framework Directive.

France: IFREMER report on Marine renewable energy includes expected forecasts.

Chapter 24. Solid waste disposal

Socio‐economic impact studies on ammunition dumps in the Adriatic are available.

EEA: Reports on the Palomares ammunition dump along the east coast of Spain.

Chapter 25. Marine debris

Member states reports produced under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive contain information on this subject.

Chapter 26. Land/sea physical interaction


- UK: information is available on socio-economic aspects and the management of coastal erosion.

- UK: TEEB study on coastal erosion prevention and sedimentation

Member state reports produced under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive contain information on socio‐economic effects on

A paper has been recently submitted by Camion Liquette from the European Environment Agency assessing Coastal Erosion Prevention as an ecosystem service for all European Waters. Camino needs to be contacted directly if you wish a copy of this paper. However, this assessment was very thorough and produces coastal erosion

34 | October 2012

changes in hydrological conditions and associated impacts.

maps for the whole of Europe which would be of use in this chapter.

Chapter 27. Tourism and recreation


- OSPAR - World Tourism Organisation (WTO) - Statistics Canada - Mediterranean: UNEP/MAP Plan Bleu has produced several

studies on coastal tourism, cruises and recreational boating in the Mediterranean.

- Willingness to pay studies on beach use by tourist are available in Italy.

-

Eurostat has a lot of information relating to tourism. There is a number of Mediterranean projects.

Chapter 29. Use of marine genetic resources

Data sources include e.g. the ESF‐Marine Board Marine Biotechnology report (2011).

Chapter 30. Marine scientific research

Data sources include EUROSTAT statistics on expenditures in marine research and reports produced by the ESF‐MB.

Chapter 43. Significant environmental,

Reports produced under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive contain information on socio‐economic aspects of biodiversity. Impact

This report has an interesting take on marine activity and may be useful for this report/chapter:

economic and/or social aspects in relation to the conservation of marine species and habitats

studies are available on the DG Mare website.

Data on investments in biodiversity are available (e.g. LIFE).

Canada: a willingness‐to‐pay study on marine biodiversity is available.

http://www.iwlearn.net/publications/regional‐seas‐reports/unep‐regional‐seas‐reports‐and‐studies‐no‐181

The ODEMM project (associated with EU MSFD implementation) produced a chapter on economic and social considerations in Europe. Refer to ODEMM Deliverable 1 (Chapter 5) on this website: http://www.liv.ac.uk/odemm/project_deliverables/

Chapter 47. Overall value of the oceans to humans

Member state reports produced under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive may contain information and analysis on the cost of marine environmental degradations. However, no common strategy on what data is to be provided is available.

Studies have been done by HELCOM on the economic value of the Baltic Sea.

UNEP/MAP Plan Bleu has produced an exploratory assessment of the Economic Value of sustainable benefits rendered by the Mediterranean marine ecosystems (2010).

Report which has some interesting findings:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sesame‐ip.eu%2Fdoc%2FMMA_Marine_ecosystems_and_human_well_being.pdf&ei=zYZcUJSWKcOU0QXBvIDwCw&usg=AFQjCNF6uCo8IIyeixiIcaGJZXBEk7Q‐eQ

36 | October 2012

http://www.unep.org/ecosystemmanagement/UNEPsWork/MarineandCoastalEcosystems/tabid/513/Default.aspx

http://chartingprogress.defra.gov.uk/

Annex 7

EEA EU‐based information provision

UN RP 1st World Ocean Assessment

Socio‐economic aspects of the assessment’s outline

Follow‐up to the Workshop for the North Atlantic, the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, under the auspices of the United Nations, in support of the Regular

Process Brussels, 27‐29 June 2012

General considerations

Information sources provided below have not been checked to ensure that they actually provide the required information for the specific points of the assessment outline to which they relate. They as offered as ‘leads’ for follow‐up to the eventual authors of the assessment

All European/EU level studies below tend to limit coverage of the Mediterranean and Black seas to the EU countries (Member States) bordering them

The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) is the new EU marine law (since 2008 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/marine/index_en.htm ).

As part of its implementation, EU countries have to carry out an ‘Initial Assessment’ (Article 8) by July 2012, where the use of their marine waters (pressures and economic activities) and the associated costs of degradation are covered (MSFD, Article 8.1.c).

At the moment there is no overview/analysis of these ‘Initial Assessments’ at the EU level. That is due but will only be produced towards the end of 2014 or a bit later, and so too late for the UN Regular Process 1st Assessment

What is available are the DRAFTS ‘Initial Assessments’ that each EU country has put out for public consultation before by July 2012 (these should have being finished using the results from the public consultation by July 2012). They are in the country’s original language and not available for all of them as yet. You can find the existing ones at this web page: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/marine/public‐consultation/index_en.htm , which keeps on being updated

All European regional sea conventions have web pages with relevant marine environmental protection reports (look at their studies or publications sections. May also have actual data), which ‐ in some cases ‐ include socio‐economic aspects of the pressure on those European regional seas (for all EU and non‐EU

38 | October 2012

countries).

Baltic Sea - HELCOM: http://www.helcom.fi/ NEA – OSPAR: http://www.ospar.org/ Black Sea – Black Sea Commission: http://www.blacksea-commission.org/ Mediterranean Sea - UNEP/MAP MEDPOL:

http://www.unepmap.org/index.php?module=content2&catid=001017003

Keep track of the development of a couple of EEA Reports to be published this year (2012) using our web page (http://www.eea.europa.eu/ ). These are:

An update of the 2006 ’State of coasts’ Report, which is also very relevant for marine issues and will include ‘maritime uses’ and associated socio-economics

An update of the 2008 ’Climate Change Impacts in Europe Report

Outline Chapter & Issue

Info source

Chapter 4

Sea level rise

PESETA project http://peseta.jrc.ec.europa.eu/index.html; Final Report (relevant for coastal flooding and tourism) http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC55391.pdf

The economics of climate change adaptation in EU coastal areas (2009) (http://ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs/documentation/studies/documents/report_en.pdf )

Full costs of climate change (CLIMATECOST). EU research project, 2012 that has calculated climate impacts and associated economic costs across Europe during the 21st century. See report on their web page http://www.climatecost.cc/

Chapter 11

Capture fisheries, including subsidies

New Economics Foundation (http://www.neweconomics.org/ )

1. Jobs Lost at Sea (Overfishing and the jobs that never were) http://www.neweconomics.org/node/1968 2. Value slipping through the net (Managing fish stocks for public benefit) http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/value-slipping-

through-the-net 3. Money Overboard (Why discarding fish is a waste of jobs and money) http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/money-overboard

World Bank/FAO et al: The Sunken Billions

40 | October 2012

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTARD/Resources/336681‐1224775570533/SunkenBillionsFinal.pdf

Subsidies

1. http://fishsubsidy.org/ Many relevant Reports there

2. 0BOCEAN2012: Reforming EU Fisheries Subsidies http://assets.ocean2012.eu/publication_documents/documents/167/original/Report_reform_fisheries_subsidies.pdf

FAO SOFIA (THE STATE OF WORLD FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE 2012) http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/i2727e/i2727e00.htm

European Commission, DG MARE, Impact Assessments of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform

Impact assessment concerning the Commissionʹs proposal for the 2012 reform of the Common Fisheries Policy; SEC(2011) 891

Impact assessment accompanying the document ʺProposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on

the Common Organisation of the Markets in Fishery and Aquaculture Productsʺ; SEC(2011) 883

Impact assessment accompanying the document ʺProposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on

the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1198/2006 and Council Regulation(EC) No

861/2006 and Council Regulation No XXX/2011 on integrated maritime policyʺ SEC(2011) 1416 [381 KB]

o Executive summary of the Impact Assessment SEC(2011) 1417 [48 KB]

41

European Commission, DG MARE: Fisheries ‘statistics’, Facts and figures on the CFP

http://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/documentation/publications/pcp_en.pdf

Small‐scale: FAO is about to adopt international guidelines for securing sustainable small‐scale fisheries, which may be relevant. Zero draft available: ftp://ftp.fao.org/FI/DOCUMENT/ssf/SSF_guidelines/ZeroDraftSSFGuidelines_MAY2012.pdf

DG MARE ‘Blue Growth’ Communication/initiative (http://ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs/policy/blue_growth/index_en.htm ) and studies underlying it with data on ‘extent’ of the activity, employment, etc. E.g. ‘Blue Growth Study ‐ Scenarios and drivers for Sustainable Growth from the Oceans, Seas and Coasts’ https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/maritimeforum/content/2946

Chapter 13

Tuna ranching in the Mediterranean

(fish stock propagation)

Documenting the issue:

1. Marine Fisheries and Aquaculture series http://www.pbs.org/emptyoceans/fts/tuna/index.html (keep on pressing ‘next’ in the case study) 2. PEW Environment Group: Mind the gap http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/other-resources/mind-the-gap-an-analysis-of-the-

gap-between-mediterranean-bluefin-tuna-quotas-and-international-trade-figures-85899364820 3. Greenpeace: Where have all the tuna gone? http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/fishing-piracy-killing-off-med/ 4. iWatch news http://www.iwatchnews.org/2010/11/07/2340/part-ii-diving-tuna-ranching-industry

Some (more, there may be some above) figures/numbers and references that could be followed (those to FAO would be updated in the SOFIA)

1. Journal of world-systems research, Global sushi: The political economy of the Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery in the modern era

42 | October 2012

http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol17/Longo-vol17n2.pdf (from pp 415 onwards)

2. A Mediterranean Journal of Economics, Agriculture and Environment, Bluefin tuna fishing and ranching: a difficult

management problem, http://dev.iamb.it/v2/share/img_new_medit_articoli/38_59destefano.pdf

Chapter 15

General fisheries socio‐economics

For employment: See DG MARE and FAO SOFIA above

For social structure/small scale fishing: FAO is developing ‘International Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries’, which cover socio-economics so maybe the preparatory work toward that may be useful (see draft zero at) ftp://ftp.fao.org/FI/DOCUMENT/ssf/SSF_guidelines/ZeroDraftSSFGuidelines_MAY2012.pdf

For international fish trade (EU fishing ‘footprint’ in other seas): o For ‘expansion’ mostly: See WWF map http://wwf.ixtract.de/ and STUDY ON THE EUROPEAN EXTERNAL FLEET

http://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/documentation/studies/study_external_fleet/external_fleet_2008_en.pdf

o 1BFor actual ‘conflict’: See Greenpeace’ Stolen fish - How Africa feeds Europe’ http://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/en/Publications/2010/stolen-fish-how-africa-feeds-europe/

Cost of IUUF to the EU: eftec report for PEW on ‘Costs of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing in EU Fisheries

http://www.pewenvironment.org/uploadedFiles/PEG/Publications/Report/eftec%20report.pdf

Chapter 17 shipping

characterisation

EU plans: EC DG Transport, TENs-T, Motorways of the sea/short-sea shipping:

o Maritime Transport Strategy 2018 http://ec.europa.eu/transport/strategies/2018_maritime_transport_strategy_en.htm (see also related documents at the end)

o Short sea shipping http://ec.europa.eu/transport/maritime/short_sea_shipping/short_sea_shipping_en.htm (see also related documents at the end)

43

Opening of the Arctic for shipping : Marine Traffic in the Arctic A Report Commissioned by the Norwegian Mapping

Authority http://www.iho.int/mtg_docs/rhc/ArHC/ArHC2/ARHC2-04C_Marine_Traffic_in_the_Arctic_2011.pdf


Chapter 17 shipping

threats

See European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSAS)’s ‘environment’ page and menu, with statistics and information there on oil, ballast water, etc. http://emsa.europa.eu/implementation-tasks/environment.html

See IUCN review work for the Mediterranean from which to follow-up issues o Maritime traffic effects on biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea: Volume 1 - Review of impacts, priority areas and

mitigation measures (http://data.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/2008-042-1.pdf ) o Risks from maritime traffic to biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea: Identification of issues and possible

responses (http://data.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/2009-062.pdf) ACCOBAMS (http://www.accobams.org/ )and ASCOBANS (http://www.ascobans.org/ ) both work on the impacts from

underwater noise on cetaceans in European regional seas, see their web pages

Chapter 18

ports

Documentation on EU plans for shipping under Chapter 17 could be relevant to ports


44 | October 2012

Chapter 19 cables and pipelines

To lean about plans in Europe:

See the web page of ‘Oil and Gas Watch Europe’ http://oilandgaswatcheurope.com/energy-industry-pr-services-europe/ , in particular the pipelines section http://oilandgaswatcheurope.com/category/oil-gas-pipeline-projects/

Also COWI’s Assessment of the Gas and Oil Pipelines in Europe

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/itre/dv/gas_and_oil_pipelines_in_europe_/gas_and_oil_pipel

ines_in_europe_en.pdf

Annex 8 - Literature

Knights, A.M., Koss, R.S., Papadopoulou, N., Cooper L.H. and L.A. Robinson (2011). Sustainable use of European regional seas and the role of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. Deliverable 1, EC FP7 Project (244273) ‘ Options for delivering Ecosystem-based Marine Management’ University of Liverpool. ISBN 978-0-906370-63-6. 165 pp.

EU‐DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – main report. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU‐DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Belgium. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU‐DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Cyprus. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – the Netherlands. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Poland. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Portugal. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Slovenia. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Spain. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

46 | October 2012

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Sweden. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – United Kingdom. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Denmark. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – France. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Germany. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Greece. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Austria, Czech Republic,

Hungary, Luxembourg and Slovakia. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Ireland. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Italy. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Latvia. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

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EU-DG MARE (2006). An exhaustive analysis of employment trends in all sectors related to sea or using sea resources Country report – Malta. C3135. ECOTEC Research & Consulting together with ECORYS Research & Consulting

Bailey, I., West, J. & I. Whitehead (2011). Out of Sight but Not out of Mind? Public Perceptions of Wave Energy. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 13(2):139-157.

Haggett, C. (2011). Understanding public responses to offshore wind power. Energy policy 39:503-510.

Lacroix, D. & S. Pioch. (2011) The multi-use in wind farm projects: more conflicts or a win-win opportunity? Aquatic Living Resources 24:129–135

Todd, P. (2012). Marine renewable energy and public rights. Marine Policy 36:667–672

Todt, O., González, M.I. & B. Estévez (2011). Conflict in the Sea of Trafalgar: offshore wind energy and its context Wind Energy 14:699–706

Ministerie van LNV (2006). Kentallen Waardering Natuur, Water, Bodem en Landschap - Hulpmiddel bij MKBA´s. Witteveen en bos.

Whitmarsh, L. & S. O’Neill (2010). Green identity, green living? The role of pro-environmental self-identity in determining consistency across diverse pro-environmental behaviours. Journal of Environmental Psychology 30:305–314

Abel, N., Gorddard, R., Harman, B., Leitch, A., Langridge, J., Ryan, A. & S. Heyenga. Sea level rise, coastal development and planned retreat: analytical framework, governance principles and an Australian case study. Environmental Science and Policy 14:279-288

Garcıa-Llorente, M., Martın-Lopez, B. & C. Montes. (2010) Exploring the motivations of protesters in contingent valuation: Insights for conservation policies. Environmental science and policy 14:76-88

Lloret, J. (2010) Human health benefits supplied by Mediterranean marine biodiversity Marine Pollution Bulletin 60:1640–1646

Cisneros-Montemayor, A.C. & U.Rashid Sumaila (2010)A global estimate of benefits from ecosystem-based marine recreation: potential impacts and implicationsfor management. Journal of Bioeconomics 12:245–268

48 | October 2012

Marin, V., Palmisani, F., Ivaldi, R., Dursi, R. & M. Fabiano (2009). Users’ perception analysis for sustainable beach management in Italy. Ocean & Coastal Management 52:268–277.

Gu-Ping, H. Yuan J., Sun L., Zhi-Gang, S., Jue-Heng W., Xiu-Jian, L., Xun, Z., Yong-Cheng L. & C. Sheng-Ping. () Statistical Research on Marine Natural Products Based on Data Obtained between 1985 and 2008. Marine Drugs 9:514-525

Imhoff, J.F., Labes, A. & J.Wiese (2011) Bio-mining the microbial treasures of the ocean: New natural products. Biotechnology Advances 29:468–482

Javed, F., Qadir, M., Hussain, K. M. Ali (2011). Novel drugs from marine microorganisms. Critical Reviews in Microbiology, 37:245–249

Wegner, G. & U. Pascual. (2011). Cost-benefit analysis in the context of ecosystem services for human well-being: A multidisciplinary critique. Global Environmental Change 21:492–504

Stolton, S. (2009). Communicating values and benefits of protected areas in Europe. Results of a Seminar organised by BfN and the EUROPARC

Federation at the International Academy for Nature Conservation on the Island of Vilm, Germany.

Annex 9

LIST OF ASSESSMENTS IN THE BALTIC SEA

1. ‘Broad assessments’

BRISK - Sub-regional risk of spill of oil and hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea (updated 2010)

HELCOM Red List of Baltic Breeding Birds (2012)

Indicator-based assessment of coastal fish community status in the Baltic Sea 2005-2009 (BSEP 131)

Checklist of Baltic Sea Macro-species (2012) - Download the Checklist in Microsoft Excel format here (BSEP 130)

Towards an ecologically coherent network of well-managed Marine Protected Areas - Implementation report on the status and ecological coherence of the HELCOM BSPA network (2010) (BSEP 124B)

Maritime Activities in the Baltic Sea - An integrated thematic assessment on maritime activities and response to pollution at sea in the Baltic Sea region (2010) (BSEP 123)

Fifth Baltic Sea Pollution Load Compilation (PLC-5) (2011) - Download higher resolution version here (BSEP 128)

Ecosystem Health of the Baltic Sea - HELCOM Initial Holistic Assessment (2010) (BSEP 122)

Hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea - An integrated thematic assessment of hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea (2010) (BSEP 120B)

Radioactivity in the Baltic Sea, 1999-2006 - HELCOM thematic assessment (2009) (BSEP 117)

Biodiversity in the Baltic Sea - An integrated thematic assessment on biodiversity and nature

conservation in the Baltic Sea (2009) (BSEP 116B)

Eutrophication in the Baltic Sea – An integrated thematic assessment of the effects of nutrient enrichment in the Baltic Sea region (2009) (BSEP 115B)

HELCOM List of threatened and/or declining species and biotopes/habitats in the Baltic Sea area (2007) (available only on website) (BSEP 113)

Climate Change in the Baltic Sea Area - HELCOM Thematic Assessment 2007 (2007) (BSEP 111)

HELCOM Red list of threatened and declining species of lampreys and fishes of the Baltic Sea (2007) (available only on website) (BSEP 109)

Heavy metal pollution to the Baltic Sea in 2004 (2007) (available only on website) (BSEP 108)

Assessment of Coastal Fish in the Baltic Sea (2006) (available only on website) (BSEP 103A)

Assessment of the Marine Litter problem in the Baltic region and priorities for response (2007)

2. ‘Narrow assessments’

Atmospheric Supply of Nitrogen, Lead, Cadmium, Mercury and Dioxins/Furans to the Baltic Sea in 2009 (2011)

Long-lived radionuclides in the seabed of the Baltic Sea; Report of the Sediment Baseline Study of

HELCOM MORS-PRO in 2000-2005 (2007) (available only on website) (BSEP 110)

Reducing risks of hazardous wastes in Russia - BALTHAZAR Project 2009-2010 (2010)

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Reducing nutrient loading from large scale animal farming in Russia - BALTHAZAR Project 2009-2010 (2010)

Salmon and Sea Trout Populations and Rivers in the Baltic Sea - HELCOM assessment of salmon (Salmo salar) and sea trout (Salmo trutta) populations and habitats in rivers flowing to the Baltic Sea. (2011) (BSEP 126A)

Population Development of Sandwich Tern (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/SandwichTern/)

Population Development of Great Cormorant (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/Cormorant/)

Population Development of White-tailed Sea Eagle (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2009/en_GB/White-tailedSeaEagle/)

Decline of the harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) in the southwestern Baltic Sea

(http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2009/en_GB/HarbourPorpoise/)

The abundance of comb jellies in the northern Baltic Sea (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2009/en_GB/CombJellies/)

Ecosystem regime state in the Baltic Proper, Gulf of Riga, Gulf of Finland, and the Bothnian Sea (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/archive/ifs2007/en_GB/ecoregime/)

Intensity and areal coverage of cyanobacterial blooms (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/Cyanobacterial_blooms/) (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/archive/ifs2008/en_GB/CyanobacteriaBloomIndex/)

The ice season 2009-2010 (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/iceseason/)

Total and regional Runoff to the Baltic Sea (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/Runoff/)

Water Exchange between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, and conditions in the Deep Basins (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/WaterExchange/)

Hydrography and Oxygen in the Deep Basins (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/HydrographyOxygenDeepBasins/)

Development of Sea Surface Temperature in the Baltic Sea in 2009 (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/SeaSurfaceTemperature/)

Wave climate in the Baltic Sea 2009 (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/waveclimate2009/)

Bacterioplankton growth (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/bacterioplankton/)

Nitrogen emissions to the air in the Baltic Sea area (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/NitrogenEmissionsAir/)

Emissions from the Baltic Sea shipping in 2009 (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/ShipEmissions/)

Atmospheric nitrogen depositions to the Baltic Sea during 1995-2008 (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/n_deposition/)

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Spatial distribution of the winter nutrient pool eutrophication (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/WinterNutrientPool/)

Waterborne inputs of heavy metals to the Baltic Sea (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/waterborne_hm/)

Atmospheric deposition of heavy metals on the Baltic Sea (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/hm_deposition/)

Atmospheric deposition of PCDD/Fs on the Baltic Sea (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/pcddf_deposition/)

Illegal discharges of oil in the Baltic Sea during 2009 (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2010/en_GB/illegaldischarges/)

Phytoplankton biomass and species succession in the Gulf of Finland, Northern Baltic Proper and Southern Baltic Sea in 2011 (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/Phyto_biomass/)

Liquid discharges of Cs-137, Sr-90 and Co-60 into the Baltic Sea from local nuclear installations (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/Cs137Discharges/)

Total amounts of the artificial radionuclide caesium -137 in Baltic Sea sediments (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/Cs137sediments/)

Concentrations of the artificial radionuclide caesium-137 in Baltic Sea fish and surface waters (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/Cs137fish/)

Cadmium concentrations in fish liver (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/cadmium_fish/)

Lead concentrations in fish liver

(http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/lead_fish/)

Mercury concentrations in fish muscle

(http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/mercury_fish/)

Hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) concentrations in herring muscle and Guillemot egg (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/hbcd_biota/)

TCDD-equivalents (WHO98-TEQ (∑PCDD/Fs)) in herring muscle and guillemot egg (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/Dioxins_fish/)

PCB concentrations in fish muscle/liver (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/pcb_fish/)

Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) concentrations in fish liver and guillemot egg (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/pfos_biota/)

Population Development of Baltic Bird Species: Southern Dunlin (Calidris alpina schinzii L., 1758) (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/dunlin/)

Predatory bird health - white-tailed sea eagle (http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/Predatory_bird_health/)

Health Assessment in the Baltic grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/ifs2011/en_GB/BalticGreySeal/

An unusual phytoplankton event five years later: the fate of the atypical range expansion of marine species into the south-eastern Baltic

Trace metal concentrations and trends in Baltic surface and deep waters

Temporal trends in contaminants in Herring in the Baltic Sea in the period 1980-2005

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Health assessment in the Baltic ringed seal (Phoca hispida botnica)

The abundance of comb jellies in the northern Baltic Sea

0

Analysis of existing marine assessments in Europe (North East Atlantic, Baltic Sea, Mediterranean and Black Sea) Draft version 03 – internal use

Preparatory document for the UN Regional Regular Process (UNRRP) meeting

Brussels, 27-29 June 2012

Prepared by Dr. Frédéric Brochier

IOC-UNESCO consultant

ellenj

Typewritten Text

Annex 3

1

• Index

1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….. 2

2. Setting the scene: European seas………………………………………………………….. 2

3. Marine assessments in a context of growing human pressures………………………… 4

4. The marine Assessment of Assessments and the GRAMED database……………….. 5

5. Methodology – approach taken……………………………………………………………… 7

6. Main findings of the marine AoA for European seas……………………………………... 9

7. Overview of existing marine assessments 2008-2012…………………………………... 11

8. Gap analysis…………………………………………………………………………………… 21

9. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………… 24

10. Annexes………………………………………………………………………………………… 25

2

1. Introduction

There is a growing awareness both of the key role European seas already play as a driver of Europe's prosperity and their potential for providing greater well-being (e.g. EEA 20101). Over recent years, Europe has progressively undergone a transition towards an ecosystem-based approach that stresses the need to conserve ecosystem structure and functioning, to manage ecosystems within the limits of their functioning and to carry out management at appropriate spatial and temporal scales. All these aspects require sound scientific information and practical knowledge and that information must be provided to the decision-makers in a form they can use. In particular, the regular assessment of the status and future threats to the marine ecosystems and their implications for human well-being, is essential for sound decision making. Marine environmental assessments have increasingly become in the last decades an integral part of national, regional and global programmes for managing marine and coastal areas. The rise of integrated EU environmental legal instruments along with relevant initiatives in the framework of the regional sea Conventions and related protocols gave a real impetus to improve monitoring (in frequency and quality) of the status of the marine environment and to increase the understanding of the human–environment interactions as testified by the recent UN marine Assessment of Assessments - AoA2.

The present report looks over the most recent and updated available assessments and the current knowledge on immediate and long-term concerns and threats to the European Sea coastal and marine ecosystems with a special attention for determining the knowledge gaps that require specific focus in the future in the context of the UN Regional Regular Process (UNRRP).

The UNRRP Workshop for Europe (NE Atlantic, Baltic Sea, Mediterranean and Black Sea) will be hosted by Belgium in June 2012 (Brussels, 27-29 June 2012). As a basis for discussion, the report is intended to provide an overview of the relevant marine assessments in the region which could contribute to the UN Regular Process based on the GRAMED database and further additional assessments (covering 2008-2012).

The present report focuses on the maritime areas covered by the four European seas conventions and cover assessments of the state of the marine environment, including socio-economic aspects, but will not encompass policy evaluations and guideline documents. The report is intended to provide a first appraisal of the progresses related to marine assessments at global, regional and national level that have been produced after the first AoA report and the completion of the GRAMED database3 and to provide a brief overview of the gaps related to the issues that constitute the 4 building block of the UNRP outline.

2. Setting the scene: European seas

Europe’s oceans and seas are very diverse but all face similar environmental challenges and are subject to increasing pressures and competing usages. The attempts to address the environmental state of Europe’s seas also vary in architecture, funding, and effectiveness.

The European maritime area is significant as the total area under the jurisdiction of European states is larger than the total land area of the EU. European marine regions4 include the North-east Atlantic (NEA), the Mediterranean, Black and Baltic seas (Figure 1) — and support many important activities such as shipping, fishing, offshore wind energy, oil, gas and mineral extraction and tourism5. The geographical coverage and the main characteristics of these so important and different marine areas are presented in Table 1.

1 EEA, 2010: The European Environment State and Outlook SOER - Thematic assessment – Marine and coastal. Environment. European Environment Agency, Copenhagen. 2 UNEP and IOC-UNESCO 2009: An Assessment of Assessments, Findings of the Group of Experts. Start-up Phase of a Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment including Socio-economic Aspects. 3 Even if the database is still in progress, most of the templates and documents have been registered before 2009. 4 The Arctic oceans are excluded in the present report 5 EEA, 2010: The European Environment State and Outlook SOER - Thematic assessment – Marine and coastal. Environment. European Environment Agency, Copenhagen.

3

Figure 1: Map of the Seas under the EU member states jurisdiction

AoA Region (Number)

Coverage Main features Map Related Regional Sea Programme

North East Atlantic Ocean (9)

The North East Atlantic Ocean extends across the northern Atlantic and includes the coastal states of the European Union. This region covers three Large Marine Ecosystems: Iberian Coastal, Celtic-Biscay Shelf, and the North Sea (LME# 24, 25 and 22 ).

The North-east Atlantic Ocean, which includes the European part of the Atlantic, also defined as area 3, 4 and 5 by the OSPAR convention, is a vast area of about13.5 million km2 which includes a diverse range of environmental conditions and different ecosystems. It is a highly productive area that hosts the most valuable fishing areas of Europe and many unique habitats and ecosystems. It is also home to Europe's largest oil and gas reserves.

OSPAR

Baltic Sea (3)

The Baltic Sea region includes the Baltic Sea Large Marine Ecosystem (LME#23) and involves 9 countries (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Sweden) as well as the European Union (EU).

The Baltic is the largest brackish water system in the world. Its marine area has a surface area of 415,000 km2. The Baltic Sea is semi enclosed with low salinity due to restricted water exchange with the North East Atlantic and large river run-off. The Baltic Sea is shallow (mean depth 52 m, maximum depth 459 m). As a result, the marine environment is very vulnerable to land-based pollution. Its north and northeast extremities are frozen over for part of the year. The sea is connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Kattegat Strait, Skagerrak Strait, and the North Sea. The Baltic Sea has become an inner sea of the EU (apart from small shore parts of Russia in Petersburg and Kaliningrad).

HELCOM

http://www.ospar.org/content/content.asp?menu=00010100000020_000000_000000

4

Mediterranean Sea (7)

The region includes the Mediterranean Sea Large Marine Ecosystem (LME#26) and the Sea is almost completely enclosed by Europe, Africa, and Asia. The riparian countries and territories constitute are 22

The Mediterranean is the largest semi-enclosed European sea with a surface area of 2.5 million km2. The sea is oligotrophic with high salinity due to high evaporation rates and low river run-off. Oligotrophy increases from west to east. The sea has restricted water exchange with the Atlantic and Black Sea. It is the most biologically diverse sea in Europe. The Mediterranean is the world’s leading tourist destination and also a major shipping channel, with almost a third of all international cargo traffic passing through it. Aquaculture (fish farming) is well established, and the fishing industry is a significant source of employment. The Mediterranean sea is also commonly subdivided into four distinct sub-regions namely (i) Western Mediterranean Sea, (ii) Adriatic Sea, (iii) the Ionian Sea and the Central Mediterranean Sea and (iv) the Aegean-Levantine Sea.

Barcelona Convention

Black Sea (4)

The Black Sea region is bordered by 6 countries: Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russian Federation, Turkey, and Ukraine, and includes the Black Sea Large Marine Ecosystem (LME#62).

The Black Sea has a surface area of 461,000 km2. Though almost enclosed, the Black Sea is deep with restricted water exchange with the Mediterranean. Its waters are anoxic at depths below 150–200 meters (about 87% of the Black Sea is entirely anoxic). It is connected to the Mediterranean Sea by the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara, and to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch. An important feature of the Black Sea is an unusually high river discharge into the relatively small semi-enclosed Sea. The Black Sea drainage basin covers nearly third part of Europe. With a huge catchment area and low oxygen levels, the Black Sea is highly sensitive to anthropogenic impacts the water is an extremely vulnerable environment.

Black Sea Commission

Table 1: Synthetic presentation of the main features of European seas. Source: UNEP and IOC-UNESCO 20096 and EEA 20107

3. Marine assessments in a context of growing human pressures

Many of Europe's environmental issues, such as climate change, biodiversity loss or unsustainable resource use are closely linked and have a complex and often global character that span the societal and economic spheres and impair important ecosystem services8. The EU objective of halting biodiversity loss by 2010 has not been met in either the coastal or the marine environment, and marine biodiversity in the environment continues to decline. Human activities are recognized as the key drivers of these disruptive changes.

Many definitions of assessment exist. A marine environmental assessment usually involves a formal process by which information is collected, evaluated, and undertaken to assess the state of knowledge9. Marine Assessments respond to information needs and emerging issues and may help to determine how to safeguard the long-term productivity of marine ecosystems, direct us towards more sustainable uses, and provide options for more effective sea/ocean governance.

The definition used by the UNRG, based on Mitchell et al., (2006) is functional in terms of assumptions or prescriptions about what an assessment should contain and its use for marine assessment is being widespread (e.g. EEA AoA10, Marine Board ESF 201011). Assessments are therefore defined in the present

6 UNEP and IOC-UNESCO 2009: An Assessment of Assessments, Findings of the Group of Experts. Start-up Phase of a Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment including Socio-economic Aspects. 7 EEA 2010: The European Environment State and Outlook SOER - Thematic assessment – Marine and coastal. Environment. European Environment 8 EEA 2010 10 messages for 2010 - Marine ecosystems, . Environment. European Environment 9 GESAMP, 1994: Guidelines for Marine environmental assessments, IMO, London. 10 EEA 2011: Europe's Environment Assessment of Assessments (EE-AoA), European Environment Agency, Copenhagen.http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/regions/pan-european/europes-environment-an-assessment

http://www.allthesea.com/Mediterranean-Sea.html

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report in consistence with the AoA process, as formal efforts to assemble selected knowledge with a view towards making it publicly available in a form intended to be useful for decision making12.

For marine ecosystem management to precede successfully, it is essential to have access to the necessary information and data on regional and sub-regional scales. Fortunately, in recent years, the body of information, derived from numerous sources, describing and quantifying pressures and trends on the coastal and marine waters has grown. As correctly highlighted by the AoA EEA, many more assessments are now found at trans-country regional levels covering transboundary environmental issues.

Furthermore, at the European level, pan-European and EEA level assessments are very important and the multilateral environmental agreements also produce assessments, the most recent example being the second assessment of the UNECE transboundary rivers and international lakes convention. There are also many existing reports and databases available on coastal and marine environments through organizations such as UNEP, GEF, IUCN, ICES, CIESM, FAO as well as under the framework of Regional seas conventions that constitute the bulk of the information and reports for the present report.

4. The marine Assessment of Assessments and the GRAMED database

The first Assessment of Assessments (AoA) of the state of the marine environment (marine AoA13), launched in 2005 by the UN General Assembly resolution 60/30, is part of the Start-up phase of the UN regular process and is considered a pioneer in laying the foundations for the development of a Regular Process for global reporting and assessment.

The GRAMED14 Database has been developed by UNEPWCMC as a key informative tool to support the marine Assessment of Assessments. Initially developed to support the work of the Group of Experts charged with carrying out the AoA, the database has been developed with the aim to provide key support to a future regular process for the global reporting and assessment of the state of the marine environment. The GRAMED is a dynamic database which provides fully access to the largest existing collection of information on assessments, scientific research studies and data holdings related to the marine and coastal environment at the national, regional and supra-regional scale. To date it is still the only database of its kind freely available through the web worldwide. The GRAMED focus is mainly on activities and related scientific activities at the national, regional and global scale which could provide particular lessons or information on assessment processes or products as a contribution to the Assessment of Assessments.

This database represents a valuable starting point for gathering together information on assessments, research studies data holdings, and other activities that have, or are being undertaken in the marine environment at several scales until about 2008-2009. The GRAMED database contains at the time of the present report information about 1023 activities. The structure of the database reflects the data provided through over 250 templates developed by members of the Group of Experts and other experts during the AoA process. The basic structure of the GRAMED template is presented in Table 2.

This database started from the 2003 document "Global Marine Assessments: A survey of global and regional marine environmental assessments and related scientific activities" and gather assessments carried out until 2008-2009. European seas represents 4 out of the 21 regions delineated for the AoA process by the Group of Experts and 230 assessments and data holdings are recorded in the GRAMED database for the 4 European seas. The number of assessments for the European seas represent a relevant share of the total number of registered assessments with about 22,5 % of the total number of assessments recorded. Across the 4 seas, the distribution of assessments is uneven. NE Atlantic ocean and the Mediterranean sea have the major number of assessments with respectively 78 assessments i.e 7,6 % each of the total number of assessments for the world ocean. The Black sea is the less represented sea with only 18 assessments recorded (Figure 2).

11 Marine Board-ESF 2010: Science dimensions of an Ecosystem Approach to Management of Biotic Ocean Resources (SEAMBOR) 12 Mitchell, R.B. Clark, W.C. Cash, D.W. and Dickson, N.M. 2006: Global Environmental Assessments: Information and Influence Cambridge: MIT Press. 13 UNEP and IOC-UNESCO 2009: An Assessment of Assessments, Findings of the Group of Experts. Start-up Phase of a Regular Process for Global

Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment including Socio-economic Aspects. 14 http://www.unep-wcmc-apps.org/gramed/

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Template

Scale

Region:

Name of Assessment:

Acronym:

Full Reference:

Full Text Reports/Output URL:

Assessment reviewed by GoE member:

Classification/Type of Activity:

Organisation:

Justification/Context of the Assessment:

Objectives of the Assessment:

Status of Activity:

Is the assessment repeated:

Start Date:

Finish Date:

Table 2: Template format included in the GRAMED database for individual assessments Assessments are primarily carried–out at the regional scale (83% for Europe seas versus 49% for all regions – see Figure 4). On average broad assessments represents 32% of the assessments for the Europe, which is very close to the global average (31%). The Black Sea has the higher number of broad assessments with 56% while 28 % of assessments are classified as “Narrow Assessment” (Figure 3). In fact only 5 assessments are registered in the database as narrow assessment for the Black Sea, which is rather low and could reflect a lack of regional accessible and meaningful detailed studies of the activities and pressures affecting the Black Sea ecosystem (see the Marine AoA ).

Figure 2: Number of assessment listed in GRAMED database for the NE Atlantic, Baltic, Mediterranean and Black seas.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

North East AtlanticOcean

Baltic sea Mediterraneansea

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Figure 3: Classification of assessments over all assessments for Europe’s seas

Figure 4: percentage of scale over assessments for European seas 5. Methodology – approach taken

The present report is based on a desk-based research over May and June 2012. The methodology relies upon a regional approach to look across relevant marine assessments for the 4 European marine areas. Main sources of information are existing national and transnational assessments on the state and impacts of key marine issues in the Seas under European member states jurisdiction. The report uses the GRAMED database as a key primary information source. The analysis then restricts itself to looking at the most recent and complete assessments with the goal of providing a brief overview of those assessments produced after the first AoA report and the completion of the GRAMED database. The report focused therefore on the assessment produced over the period 2008-2012. A screening of the structure, objectives, data sources, geographical coverage, gaps and issues covered by the assessment is proposed by means of specific individual templates. The completed templates presented in the Annex 2 will be used as an informative tool to make a first appraisal of progresses in assessment procedures across regional seas and current existing uncertainties in scientific knowledge and assessment processes.

The collection of the main documents and information that may complete the GRAMED database and be useful for the UNRRP is mainly based on an a targeted Web-based research. The focus has been given to assessments not listed nor analysed in the GRAMED database. A preliminary list of all assessment reports registered in the GRAMED database for European seas was firstly constructed (the complete list may be found in Annex 1) and then the list was confronted to the most recent assessments accessible through the

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

North EastAtlantic Ocean

Baltic sea Mediterraneansea

Black Sea

broad assessment

narrow assessment

0%

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20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

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Mediterranean Black sea Baltic sea NEA

Global scale.

Global/Regionalscale.National scale.

Regional scale

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internet. At the regional sea level, priority was given to assessments that integrated several thematic areas and/or covered large geographical areas. Most assessments considered were conducted from 2008 to 2012.

Web-seach engine such as google scholar and scirus in support of main international organisation and regional sea programme websites (EC, OSPAR, HELCOM, UNEP/MAP, PAR/RAC, BSC, EEA, IUCN, ICES, CIESM) along with some scientific publications repositories (JRC Publications repository15, Ressources documentaire du Plan Bleu, Archimer16, Marine Institute Open Access Repository17, Census of Marine Life Bibliographic Database18) have been extensively used. Cross-check between institutional websites and scientific publications repositories have been done to avoid missing relevant recently published reports.

Initially emphasis was placed on documents and reports dealing with cross-sectoral analysis at regional level but was later broadened to include sectoral/thematic analysis (narrowed assessments) considered pertinent to the assessment of the coastal/marine environment. Sub-regional, National-level and EU-project activities have been incorporated where relevant and particular lessons could be drawn. Due to the large amount of existing assessments, relevant reports and state-and-trends analysis even over a so brief period 2008-2012 (which again demonstrates the dynamic character of the Assessment practice over Europe), a selection procedure has then been applied largely inspired on the EEA-AoA methodology.

Parameters used for prioritisation include the following:

• give priority to documents that broadly meet the three main conditions encompassed in the definition of assessment (Mitchell, et al. 2006) namely that the piece of work is ‘formal’, it assembles ‘selected knowledge’ and it is ‘publicly available’.

• give priority to most recent assessments reports (i.e. published from 2008 onwards) and to cross-sectoral (or cross –issues) approaches;

• give priority to assessment reports with the most comprehensive geographical coverage at regional levels – that is to say the whole Mediterranean, Black sea, NEA, and Baltic basin or both;

• give priority to assessment reports (including thematic assessments) covering emerging issues such as marine litter, climate change, ecosystem services in coherence with the 4 building blocks of the UNRP outline;

• give priority to Regional SoE reports and ecosystems-based assessment focusing on the coastal and marine environment.

Due to time restrictions, Data holdings have not been taken into considerations. The collected assessments and related documents have been examined at the individual assessment level using a common template that focuses mainly on the analysis of the assessment product. All the 63 completed templates are presented in Annex 2.

In order to provide a certain degree of consistency, we used the same terminology as used in the GRAMED database as regards the classification of assessments and the scales (also considering the scale definition included in the Marine AoA). Main terminology used in the present report is reported in Table 3.

The template that we used for individual assessments has been designed in order to include parameter that may respond to the information requested in the Appendix I of the Guidelines for Capacity Building Workshops on the Regular Process, namely:

(a) Agency conducting the specific assessment; (b) Major intended users of the assessment, and the uses for which it was intended; (c) Spatial and temporal scale of the assessment, and frequency of assessment cycle; (d) Issues covered by the assessment; (e) Types of data, experiential knowledge, indicators and the reasons for their selection, and other information sources contributing to the assessment; (f) Where trends of component information sets have been deduced, the methods employed; (g) Where an effort has been made to integrate different types of information, particularly social, economic and ecological information, the extent of, and methods for, such integration;

15 http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/ 16 http://archimer.ifremer.fr/search.jsp 17 oar.marine.ie 18 http://db.coml.org/comlrefbase/

http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/

http://archimer.ifremer.fr/search.jsp

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(h) Sources of any evaluation benchmarks, reference levels or ecotoxicological assessment criteria used in the assessment; (i) Extent and sources of any forecasts, projections, and scenarios used in the assessment; and (j) If data-assessment limitations (such as data-extrapolation errors, uncertainties and/or information gaps) were addressed in the assessment, a description of how this was done.

Terminology Definition

Assessment Product The product includes both the expert reports and underlying data and information used in the analyses. There may be additional outputs like a summary for decision-makers, alternative future scenarios, products geared for different user communities or briefings for the public and the media.

Global All the world’s oceans

Regional Any existing regional division, including AoA regions

Supra-regional Any geographical unit extending beyond a region but not global

Sub-regional Sub-division of a regional unit into smaller units.

National Ocean areas under coastal states’ jurisdiction;

Supra-regional Description of a geographic area spanning more than one region

Assessment Assessments are formal efforts to assemble selected knowledge with a view toward making it publically available in a form intended to be useful for decision making

Narrow Assessment Assessments narrow in scope that focus on a particular aspect of the marine environment, such as fisheries or climate change. This does not relate to geographic coverage and may cover national, regional and global scales, as in the Reefs at Risk assessment. However it is focusing on only one aspect of the marine environment.

Broad assessment Assessments measuring multiple parameters of the ecosystem to give an overall picture of health, such as biological, physical and socio-economic data gathering. This is a "general" assessment, in that it focuses on more than one aspect of the marine environment and may look at some of the linkages between various components.

Table 3: Terminology used in the present report. Source: GRAMED database and the marine AoA report

The main limitation of this exercise lies with the process of using Web-based operations to gather information on and for assessments. These include the absence on the Internet of information that may be available in hard copy only, the fact that websites may not be updated in a timely fashion or even outdated after project or programme completion and that some of the available information is open to subjective interpretation. The report has been written and edited using an extensive amount of information obtained via the Internet and caution should be taken as websites are not always stable and even after a relatively short time much information (databases, documents) is no longer accessible or has been updated. Internet links were last checked as indicated before, during the report completion (May-June 2012).

6. Main findings of the marine AoA for European seas

The reports provide a valuable overview and analysis of the nature and extent of the marine assessment practices over world maritime regions, addressing challenges that face marine and coastal systems. In particular, as regard the assessment products, the report specially focused on the following categories of information concerning ecosystem status and trends:

a. Water Quality; b. Living Marine Resources; c. Habitat Characterizations and Impacts; d. Lower Trophic Levels in the Food Web (i.e. primary and secondary productivity) ; e. Protected Species; f. Social and Economic Conditions with respect to the Marine Environment.

The main findings of the marine AoA for the European seas, are presented in Table 4 which presents a brief synthesis of the Regional Summaries included in the Annex IV of the AoA report.

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Regional sea Assessment framework Main findings from AoA

NE Atlantic (NEA)

• International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES);

• OSPAR Convention; • International fisheries management

bodies in the region including the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC), the North Atlantic Salmon Commission (NASCO), the International Control Commission for Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) and the European Union (EU).

• A substantial amount of assessment work is undertaken also at the national level, which flows through to the regional assessment work.;

• The ICES/OSPAR systems operate major data repositories and focus on ecosystem data.

• The ICES systems cover fisheries statistics from NEA fishing countries and oceanography related data governmental and non-government marine research establishments.

• There is very little international collection of socio-economic data apart from data collected by the European Commission for its purposes.

• ICES assessments of the commercial fish stocks in the North East Atlantic cover all significant stocks;

• There is a high quality and a high level of knowledge of commercial fish stocks

• The OSPAR QSR 2000 gave a comprehensive assessment of all aspects of the marine environment. It covered the whole of the North East Atlantic region, including the high seas, although in less detail than the coastal waters

• The development by ICES/ OSPAR of ecological quality objectives (EcoQOs) will be fundamental to improving the integration of future assessments by providing a way of reading across from one field to another.

Baltic sea • International Council for the Exploration of

the Sea (ICES); • Helsinki Convention (HELCOM); • HELCOM’s five main groups: HELCOM

MONAS, HELCOM LAND, HELCOM HABITAT, HELCOM MARITIME, HELCOM, RESPONSE;

• Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the Baltic Sea Regional Project (BSRP);

• Baltic NEST Institute.

• The ICES/ HELCOM systems collect, gather and distribute numerous environmental data for the Baltic sea;

• Pollution loads into the Baltic Sea are regularly monitored and reported by HELCOM;

• All contracting Parties to the Convention carry out regular monitoring activities in the Baltic Sea and report the results and findings;

• A large dataset is also available at the Baltic Nest Institute; • There is a long history of assessments in the Baltic Sea

region; • Good available expertise and the interaction between marine

science, monitoring and assessments is on-going; • The readability of HELCOM holistic assessments has

increased significantly over the years, and can be seen as reviews intended for non-specialists. The annual indicator facts sheets contain up-to-date information.

Mediterranean sea

• Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) and the Barcelona Convention and its related Protocols

• MEDPOL (Mediterranean Pollution Monitoring and Research Programme).

• The Mediterranean Commission on Sustainable Development (MCSD);

• the Six MAP Regional Activity Centres (RACs).

• CIESM (International Commission for the Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean Sea) that provides the scientific framework for the exploration of the Mediterranean

• Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM).

• IUCN

• MAP Technical Reports provide an enormous capital of knowledge on many environmental aspects of the Mediterranean Sea;

• In the framework of the MED POL programme numerous documents dealing with various aspects of pollution research and monitoring have been published

• MEDPOL documents cover the whole of the Mediterranean Sea but some also cover certain sub-regional aspects;

• Very few documents deal with socio-economic aspects of the marine environment;

• There is little data on socio-economic aspects and even less on the inter-relation of these two categories;

• There is no central data repository in the Mediterranean region;

• The Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA19) for the Mediterranean Sea is an important integrated assessment;

• Further important assessments include MAP 2003 Assessment of Transboundary Pollution Issues in the Mediterranean Sea20; European Lifestyles and Marine Ecosystem (ELME21) – Priority Issues in the Mediterranean Environment; EEA, 2006: Priority Issues in the Mediterranean Environment22; and MAP/WHO 2007: Assessment of the State of Microbial Pollution of the Mediterranean Sea23 ();

19 UNEP/MAP/MED POL 2004: Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA) for the Mediterranean Sea. UNEP/MAP, Athens, 282 pp 20 MAP 2003: Assessment of Transboundary Pollution Issues in the Mediterranean Sea. (UNEP(DEC)/MED WG.228/Inf.7), MAP, Athens, 316 pp 21 Langmead, O., McQuatters-Gollop, A. and Mee, L.D. (eds.) 2007: European Lifestyles and Marine Ecosystems: Exploring Challenges for Managing Europe’s Seas (ELME). University of Plymouth Marine Institute, Plymouth, UK, 43 pp 22 EEA 2004: Priority Issues in the Mediterranean Environment. European Environment Agency, EEA Report No. 4/2006, 87 pp

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• The Mediterranean Sea and the riparian region have very good capacity for the preparation of assessments relevant to the state of the marine environment.

Black sea • Global Environment Facility (GEF); • Black Sea Environment Programme

(BSEP) and its successor; and • GEF Black Sea Ecosystem Recovery

Project (BSERP). • CIESM (International Commission for the

Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean Sea)

• ICPDR (International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River)

• Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans in the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic area (ACCOBAMS).

• There is a large amount of available environmental data mostly resulting from national studies as well as numerous scientific c publications

• Socio economic data are particularly weak in the Black Sea region, although the limit on available material is much less pronounced in the Danube basin because of the efforts of the ICPDR.

• There are no comprehensive studies on the economic and social costs of environmental degradation in terms of the loss of human welfare.

• The 2007 TDA24 is the most up-to-date assessment of the overall situation in the Black Sea, examined causal chains and covers the entire marine area and the pressures on it from land-based activities.

• Although not strictly marine, the ICPDR Roof report25 (ICPDR 2004) is a good example of an integrated assessment of a river basin district

• Fisheries assessments produced by FAO-GFCM have mostly relied on national statistics.

• There is a lack of validated information on fishing effort, catches and discards

• There is a limited studies of the impacts of current environmental degradation on human welfare..

Table 4: Main findings of the marine AoA report for the NEA, Baltic, Mediterranean and Black seas.

7. Overview of existing marine assessments 2008-2012

Since 2000, the quantity of environmental and socio-economic assessments has increased notably over Europe. Knowledge about Environmental issues has expanded rapidly. In particular at the European level, where the increasing frequency of national “state of environment” reports, sustainable development indicators and statistic-based analysis allow to fill former data gaps and the information has become more timely and complete. Many more assessments are also available at trans-national or regional levels covering for regional seas and sub-regions such as the Adriatic basin. The Regional Seas programmes provide indeed a relevant framework for assessment, in particular thanks to high levels of expertise and a long history of undertaking assessments in marine and coastal environments. Monitoring under convention-based processes are generally well-established. Major recent processes at international level and regional agreements constitute a positive context and a relevant trigger for national, sub-national and regional assessments activities. In parallel, the European Commission (EC) and EU policies play a catalytic role in inspiring member states or accession countries for implementing in sustainable development actions and measures as the EC is actively promoting the integration of sustainable development and environmental concern into policies.

This trend towards more regular and comprehensive assessments is on-going at global but also sub-regional (Europe in particular) and regional level. The following sections are based on the filled-templates that cover the main assessments produced mainly at global, regional and national level over 2008-2012 and that may be found in Annex 1. Overview of the all assessments used in the present inventory is presented in Table 5.

Global level

Over recent years, relevant global environmental assessments have been recently produced covering coastal and marine systems, and including extensive compilation of information based on multiple sources, documenting growing pressures, the state of the oceans, the main threats or specific ecosystems status. Particularly, these comprehensive assessments have been produced translating a growth in concern related to unsustainable pressures on marine organisms and an increased appreciation that biodiversity loss will have major impacts for ecosystem services and hence, for human well-being. Relevant collective efforts, such as the third Global Biodiversity Outlook26, the fourth Global Environment Outlook27 and the OECD

23 MAP/WHO 2007: Assessment of the State of Microbial Pollution of the Mediterranean Sea. Meeting of MED POL National Coordinators, UNEP(DEPI)/MED WG. 316/Inf. 5. 24 BSERP 2007: Black Sea Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis. GEF Black Sea Ecosystem Recovery Project, Istanbul 25

ICPDR 2004: Danube Basin Analysis (WFD Roof Report 2004). International Commission on the Protection of the Danube River, Vienna, 26 CDB, Convention on Biological Diversity 2010: Global Biodiversity Outlook 3. Montréal, 94 pages.2007 27 UNEP, 2007: Global Environment Outlook, GEO4, Environment for Development. UNEP, Nairobi, , Kenya

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Environmental Outlook to 203028 provide a valuable global overview of biodiversity status and threats derived from anthropogenic activities and pressures in the near future. The recent Living Planet Report29 also clearly enhanced the current unsustainable pressures on world environment and reported a global decline of the Living Planet Index (LPI - which provides information on trends in the abundance of the world’s vertebrates) of almost 30 per cent over 1970 - 2007 period. As regards marine biodiversity, the recently completed Census of Marine Life30 is so far, the largest global inventory of biodiversity and distribution of known marine species in 25 regions from Antarctica to the Arctic including the Mediterranean, the Baltic, the Atlantic Europe but excluding the Black Sea. The census, which clearly states that the marine biodiversity is threatened, is a reference basis for measuring large scale future changes.

It is also worth noticing the World Atlas of Seagrasses31, not yet included in GRAMED, that is still the most comprehensive compilation of existing information on the distribution area of seagrasses in various regions of the world, documenting some 177,000 km2 of Seagrass and providing a rough estimate of the global coverage on the order of 500,000 km2.

In 2010, FAO also published its updated State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA32 - published every two years) that provides an comprehensive global view of capture fisheries and aquaculture, including inland fisheries and all relevant policy issues and reports. The last version in 2010 also includes a section on "climate change implications for fisheries and aquaculture," which details on current scientific knowledge, the ecological and physical impacts of climate change, fishers and their communities and aquaculture. According to the FAO, 32 per cent of the world's fish stocks are estimated to be over-exploited, depleted or recovering.

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB33) report that was released in fall 2010 at the CBD COP10 in Nagoya is also a major progress in drawing attention to the global economic benefits of biodiversity and the growing costs of ecosystem degradation. However, despite their huge importance, goods and services provided by marine and coastal ecosystems have received less attention than those provided by terrestrial ecosystems.

Regional Level

At the supra-regional level, of particular relevance is the recently published “European Environment State and Outlook” - SOER34 report which has a specific thematic assessment dedicated to marine and coastal environments over Europe. Indeed, the European Environmental Agency (EEA) reports on the status of the European seas by means of broad indicator based reporting every 5 or 10 years. An updated integrated report focusing specifically on the state of the coasts is expected for 2012/2013.

The 2010 SOER marine thematic assessment is a comprehensive reference report that covers multiple aspects of the marine environment and land-sea interface in all four European marine regions. It lends support to the need of an ecosystem-based approach for managing the marine and coastal environment by reporting updated data and information extracted from a several sources. The synthetic report EEA “10 key messages”35 is also relevant in drawing the attention on particular challenging aspects and flagship issues such as climate change impacts or alien species.

As regards the Black Sea, a “State of Pollution of the Black Sea” report is prepared and published every five years based on the data collected through the coordinated pollution monitoring and assessment programme, and the next assessment is expected over 2012/2013. In addition, the Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA) for the Black sea (200736) is also an essential document that gathers existing information and analyses causal chains, linking pressures and changes to the state of the environment as shown in the marine AoA. The BSC published in 2008 the updated broad assessment “State of the Environment of the

28 OECD, 2008: OECD Environmental Outlook to 2030. OECD, Paris 29 WWF, 2010: Living Planet Report 2010 Biodiversity, biocapacity and development. WWF Gland, Switzerland. 30 http://www.coml.org/ 31 Green E.P and Short F.T. 2003: World Atlas of Seagrasses. Prepared by the UIMEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre 32 FAO 2010: State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1820e/i1820e00.htm 33 TEEB 2010 Synthesis Report Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature: A synthesis of the approach, conclusions and recommendations of TEEB http://www.teebweb.org 34 EEA 2010: The European Environment State and Outlook SOER - Thematic assessment – Marine and coastal. Environment. European Environment Agency, Copenhagen. http://www.eea.europa.eu/soer 35 EEA 2010 10 messages for 2010 - Marine ecosystems, European Environment Agency. 36 GEF 2007: Black Sea Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis TDA, UNEP, Global Environmental Facility Black Sea Environmental Programme publication, Istanbul

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Black Sea37: (2001-2006/7)”. The report included in GRAMED, completes and updates the state of the environment of the Black Sea Report in 2002 and includes relevant information that reflect significant progresses in assessing the status of the enclosed sea. In particular, the report include information on Catch per unit effort (CPUE) statistics to support total catch data and fishery statistics and a relevant insight of socio-economic pressures and impacts along with a first evaluation of the values associated with the environmental goods and services provided by the Black Sea. Over the last 15 years the Black Sea has attracted special attention from the international community after the sea ecological collapse and economic decline. After the Black Sea ecological crisis was confirmed, worldwide numerous publications appeared and there is now a growing evidence that the ecosystem is undergoing a slight recovery. However, maybe due to, in a certain extent, the end of the emergency situation, the production of studies and assessments covering main issues over the region seems to have slow down and only few relevant assessments have been produced over the period 2008-2012. It is however important to mention the recent thematic document “Marine Litter of the Black Sea”38 published in 2009 under the Black Sea Commission framework. The report gathers existing data and focus on policies, activities, and institutional arrangements concerning the Marine Litter in the Black Sea region and proposes several actions and recommends in particular their well-timed inclusion into the Strategic Action Plan.

In the Mediterranean, recent advancements include IUCN assessments on biodiversity3940 and RAC/SPA’s regional reviews41 that provide relevant information on the state of knowledge, temporal and spatial biodiversity trends and threats along with spatial identification of conservation hot spots and endangered species. These assessment testify also relevant progresses in biodiversity understanding at regional level.

Over the years, under the Barcelona Convention, several efforts have been made to provide systematic information on the state of the environment and development in the Mediterranean, the latest ones in 200942 and in 201243. These reports, which focus on fields of activity and thematic areas falling within the scope of MAP, contain a wealth of information that has contributed to greater awareness of environmental issues in the Mediterranean region44.

Further relevant assessments focusing on climate change issues and related impacts on the Mediterranean include recent UNEP/MAP publications such as the RAC/SPA, 2010 report “Impact of climate change on marine and coastal biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea: Current state of knowledge”45. Magnan et al., (200946) in turn provide a thorough overview of major climatic evolutions predicted for the Mediterranean over the century including temperatures, rainfall regimes and variation of sea level. In addition, it represents a general framework for the implementation of adaptation in the Mediterranean context, based on a number of important clarifications and accompanied by operational recommendations.

Since July 2008, the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention have been committed to progressively apply the Ecosystem Approach to manage human activities. As part of that effort, the Contracting Parties have laid the foundations for formulating policy by identifying priority issues that are common to all sub-regions and by highlighting gaps in understanding created by lack of monitoring or inconsistent monitoring. Since then, an in-depth assessment to determine priority issues, the ecological objectives and indicators have been agreed with contracting parties. The UNEP/MAP Initial Integrated Assessment of the Mediterranean sea47 represents an initial broad assessment of information on ecology, status, and pressures affecting coastal and marine ecosystems of the Mediterranean, based on existing information available at the regional level and for the Mediterranean marine sub-regions. The findings of the assessment clearly support Contracting Parties and Mediterranean countries towards the implementation of the Ecosystem Approach.

37

BSC, 2008: State of the Environment of the Black Sea (2001-2006/7). Edited by Ternel Oguz - Commission on the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution (BSC) 2008-3, Istanbul, Turkey – The report is included in the GRAMED database. 38 http://www.blacksea-commission.org/_publ-ML.asp 39 Cuttelod, A., García, N., Abdul Malak, D., Temple, H. and Katariya, V. 2008. The Mediterranean: a biodiversity hotspot under threat. In: J.-C. Vié, C. Hilton-Taylor and S.N. Stuart (eds). The 2008 Review of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN Gland, Switzerland. 40 Abdul Malak, D. et al., 2011: Overview of the Conservation Status of the Marine Fishes of the Mediterranean Sea. Gland, Switzerland and Malaga, Spain: IUCN. 41 UNEP/MAP/RAC-SPA 2010b: The Mediterranean Sea Biodiversity: state of the ecosystems, pressures, impacts and future priorities. 42 UNEP/MAP-Plan Bleu 2009: State of the Environment and Development in the Mediterranean, SOED, 43 UNEP MAP 2012: State of the Mediterranean coastal and marine environment - Highlights for policy makers 44 UNEP MAP 2012: State of the Mediterranean coastal and marine environment - Highlights for policy makers 45 UNEP-MAP-RAC/SPA, 2010: Impact of climate change on marine and coastal biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea: Current state of knowledge 46 Magnan A., Garnaud B., Billé R., Gemenne F., Hallegatte S., 2009: The future of the Mediterranean: from impacts of climate change to adaptation issues, IDDRI series, 43p. 47 UNEP MAP 2012: Initial Integrated Assessment of the Mediterranean sea – fulfilling step 3 of the ecosystem approach process

http://www.blacksea-commission.org/_publ-ML.asp

14

Last but not least the “Economic value of sustainable benefits rendered by the Mediterranean marine ecosystems” published by the Plan Bleu in 201048 catalyses the surge of interest in integrating economic evaluation into environmental assessment and in assessing ecosystems services provided by marine ecosystems in the Mediterranean in line with recent inputs from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the more recent TEEB.

As for the Baltic sea, a number of important thematic and broad assessments have been produced over the last 5 years. In particular within the Regional sea convention framework, HELCOM continues with collecting information and producing indicator reports, thematic assessments of specific issues and periodic general assessments of the whole Baltic marine environment as a basis for the policy decisions on managing the most impacting human activities.

The Baltic Sea Action Plan was adopted by HELCOM in 2007 and according to the Plan, tools and methodologies need to be developed for evaluating the status and trends related to the marine environment. Straightforward assessment of the occurrence and inputs, as well as uses and sources, of hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea region is also required.

Particularly the broad report HELCOM “Initial Holistic Assessment of the Ecosystem Health of the Baltic Sea 2003-2007”49 is an important achievement as it is the first comprehensive assessment of the ecosystem health of the entire Baltic sea, including associated economic costs and benefits at stake (where feasible, aggregated monetary values for the Baltic Sea have also been presented). The assessment is a baseline document that addresses full systems and that will be used in the future to assess progresses and the effectiveness of the implementation of the measures of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan. The assessment also covers a number of aspects of Good Environmental Status.

HELCOM environmental Indicator Fact Sheets50 also provide information on the recent state of and trends in the Baltic sea environment and cover to date the following issues: hydrographic variations (temperature, salinity, inflows and runoff); inputs and concentrations of nutrients and hazardous substances; plankton blooms and species composition; radioactivity and illegal oil discharges.

Another important regional assessment is the 2008 BALTEX51 Assessment of Climate Change for the Baltic Sea Basin that provides an up-to-date overview of the latest scientific findings in regional climate research on the Baltic Sea basin that includes past and current climate change, projected futures of anthropogenic climate change and observed and projected impacts on terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

As regards the OSPAR marine area, the main progress is the production of the OSPAR Quality Status Report (QSR) 201052 integrated report. The QSR is a key comprehensive report that assesses the quality of the marine environment for the whole North-East Atlantic based largely on the work under the Assessment and Monitoring Programme (JAMP). QSR 2010 follows the QSR 2000 published and reflects the collective effort made by Contracting Parties over the period 1998 to 2008 to manage, monitor and assess the many pressures on NEA sea ecosystems and related impacts. It assesses the quality status of the marine environment and provides an evaluation of the measures taken and planned for marine environment protection along with the identification of priorities for action. QSR 2010 covers climate change, fisheries and main human uses and impacts in addition to OSPAR’s five core thematic strategies (biodiversity and ecosystems, eutrophication, hazardous substances, offshore oil and gas and radioactive substances). The layout and content of the QSR 2010 is driven by a change in target audience, with a major focus on policy makers, managers and the public, rather than the scientific community. The QSR 2010 still not thoroughly explores the social and environmental aspects other than as drivers of environmental pressures and is structured around the main pressures and impacts rather than on ecological characteristics as per the MSFD (see ODEMM 201053). Apart from the QSR reports, OSPAR continues to effectively collect the necessary information and produce regularly updated thematic assessments of specific issues and general assessments of marine environment of the NEA as shown in Table 5 as a basis for sound policy decisions on managing the human activities.

48 Mangos, A., Bassino, J-P., Sauzade, D. 2010: The economic value of sustainable benefits rendered by the Mediterranean marine ecosystems – Plan Bleu 49 HELCOM, 2010: Ecosystem Health of the Baltic Sea 2003–2007: HELCOM Initial Holistic Assessment. Balt. Sea Environ. Proc. No. 122. 50 http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/en_GB/cover/ 51 BACC - BALTEX (Baltic Sea Experiment) 2008: Assessment of Climate Change for the Baltic Sea Basin 52 OSPAR 2010: Quality status report qsr2010.ospar.org 53 ODEMM 2011 The NE Atlantic: Additional information on status of threat-ened ecological characteristics relevant to the Marine Strategy Framework Directive ODEMM - Options for Delivering Ecosystem-basedMarine Management (Knights AM, Piet G., Breen P., Goodsir F. and LA Robinson) http://www.liv.ac.uk/ODEMM/


http://qsr2010.ospar.org/en/index.html


http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP_assessment/ifs/en_GB/cover/

http://www.liv.ac.uk/ODEMM/

15

National level

The European Union recently increased its commitment to the protection of oceans and seas and in parallel, the body of information, derived from numerous sources, describing and quantifying pressures and trends on the coastal and marine waters has grown. In particular, the objective of combating pollution and achieving good environmental status (GES) of European seas has been recently enhanced through the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD - 2000/60/EC). The Directive that came into force in 2008, constitutes an important cornerstone of the EU’s maritime policy and will exert a strong legislative framework for producing new assessments at member states level under directives obligations.

The Directive sets out high-level eleven descriptors of GES which cover all the key aspects of the marine ecosystem and main human pressures on them. They relate to biological diversity, non-indigenous species introductions, commercially exploited fish and shellfish populations, food webs, human-induced eutrophication, sea floor integrity, impacts on hydrographical conditions, concentrations of contaminants, contaminants in fish and other seafood, marine litter and underwater noise. The MSFD requires therefore comprehensive assessments of how humans use the marine environment and the development of action plans and explicit measures to achieve a GES by 2020.

The reports mentioned before at regional level, are primarily assessments at the scale of the convention waters or sub-region in question (e.g. Baltic Sea basins, four Mediterranean marine sub-regions Greater North Sea and Black Sea), that typically do not cover specific assessments at the scale of individual Member States waters. Regional reports may help to meet the MSFD’s requirements in relation to the required initial assessments, but alone will not be sufficient to fulfil their Member States assessment obligations.

Member States’ “initial assessments” to be prepared under the Art. 8 of the MSFD in 2012 will possibly not provide a complete assessment of all the relevant pressures and impacts on the marine environment as most monitoring programme do not fully meet MSFD purposes and appropriate assessment tools in spite of on-going progresses, are insufficient to ensure appropriate coverage of all aspects of the Directive. Initial assessments are likely, for the most part, to gather information generated from existing European (WFD, Habitat directive, Nitrates Directive, Bathing Waters Directive), regional or national level commitments. The most recent and integrated regional and sub-regional reports that will be of key importance for EU Member States in their initial assessments include:

• Quality Status Report 2010 for the North-East Atlantic; • Initial Holistic Assessment of the Baltic marine environment (HELCOM HOLAS); • Wadden Sea Quality Status Report 2009 (Common Wadden Sea Secretariat); • Assessment of the Mediterranean Sea for the four Mediterranean sub-regions (UNEP-MAP road map

for implementing the Ecosystem approach); and • Assessments of the Black Sea (BSC).

Member States “Initial assessments” in their definitive forms are not yet available and only some draft versions or preliminary step reports may be found on the internet. The only “initial assessment” included in the Templates is the assessment for the Dutch part of the North-Sea54.

Recent legislative improvement also includes the New European legislation on bathing water was adopted in 2006. The “New Bathing Water Directive” updates the measures of the 1975 legislation and foresee to simplify the management and surveillance methods. The New Directive based on scientific knowledge on protecting health and the environment lays down provisions for more sophisticated monitoring, assessment and classification of bathing water quality. The EEA produces an Annual summary report of bathing water quality in EU Member States every year. The last report analysis information and monitoring results for 201155 (see Table 5).

Due to the limited scope of the present report, not all the assessments, particularly those produced at level such as national reports or more generic reports like Sustainable Development reports that often include a relevant “marine” or “coastal” section, have been included in the individual templates (see Annex 2). However, a selection of possible environmental reports and assessments that may be relevant for the UNRRP are presented in the ANNEX 3 as an additional source of information. The annex includes a table with the title of the document, the related geographical scale and the source of information (web links).

54 Deltares 2011: Initial Assessment Implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework - Directive for the Dutch part of the North Sea 55 EEA 2012: European bathing water quality in 2011 EEA Report - No 3/2012

16

Scale Region Classification Title Organisation Note Corresponding chapters of the Outline of the First Global Integrated Marine Assessment

Supra-regional

Europe Broad assessment

ICES 2003: Environmental status of the European seas – German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety

ICES Not included in Gramed

4, 5, 6, 11, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 25, 27, 35, 36

Supra-regional


EEA 2006: The changing faces of Europe's coastal areas, EEA Report No 6/2006 European Environment Agency, Copenhagen

EEA Not included in Gramed

4, 11, 12, 20, 21, 26, 27

Supra-regional

Europe Narrow assessment

ESF, 2007: Impacts of Climate Change on the European Marine and Coastal Environment Ecosystems Approach - Position Paper 9

ESF Not included in Gramed

4, 5

Supra-regional


EEA 2010: Marine and coastal environment - SOER 2010 thematic assessment

EEA New assessment

4, 5, 6, 11, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 25, 27, 35, 36

Supra-Regional


EEA 2011: Hazardous substances in Europe's fresh and marine waters — An overview EEA Technical report No 8/2011

EEA New assessment

17, 20, 21

Supra-regional


ESF 2011: Climate Change and Marine Ecosystem Research - Synthesis of European Research on the Effects of Climate Change on Marine Environments CLAMER project deliverable 1.2

Marine Board-ESF

New assessment

4, 5

Supra-regional


EEA 2012: European bathing water quality in 2011 EEA Report - No 3/2012

EEA New assessment

20

Global World Ocean

Narrow assessment

Greenpeace 2006: Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans Greenpeace Not included in Gramed

25

Global World Ocean

Narrow assessment

UNEP, 2009. Marine Litter: A Global Challenge. Nairobi: UNEP.

UNEP New assessment

25

Regional NE Atlantic

Narrow assessment

EEA 2002: Europe's biodiversity - biogeographical regions and seas - The North-east Atlantic Ocean - huge, deep and heavily exploited


6, 11, 12, 34, 35, 36


Narrow assessment

OSPAR 2009: Eutrophication Status of the OSPAR Maritime Area - Second OSPAR Integrated Report

OSPAR Updated assessment

20


Narrow assessment

OSPAR 2009: Marine litter in the North-East Atlantic Region. Assessment and priorities for response

OSPAR New assessment

17, 25


Narrow assessment

OSPAR 2009: Assessment of the impacts of shipping on the marine environment


17, 18


Narrow assessment

OSPAR 2009: Assessment of climate change mitigation and adaptation.


4, 5, 22

17


Narrow assessment

ICES advice 2008, book 1: Chapter 1.5.5.1, An assessment of the changes in the distribution and abundance of marine species in the OSPAR maritime area in relation to changes in hydrodynamics and sea temperature.


4, 5, 6, 11


Narrow assessment

OSPAR 2009: Assessment of impacts of offshore oil and gas activities in the North-East Atlantic


19, 21


Broad assessment

OSPAR 2010: Quality status report OSPAR Updated assessment

4, 5, 6, 11, 15, 17, 18, 19 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 34, 35, 36


Narrow assessment

OSPAR 2009: Impacts of climate change on the North-East Atlantic ecosystem – monitoring and assessment series


4, 5, 6


Narrow assessment

OSPAR 2009: Status and trend of marine chemical pollution - Hazardous Substances Series


17, 19, 20, 21


Broad assessment

OSPAR, 2009: Trend analysis of maritime human activities and their collective impact on the OSPAR maritime area


11, 12, 17, 18, 21, 23, 25, 27

Regional Wadden Sea

Broad assessment

Common Wadden Sea Secretariat, 2010: The Wadden Sea Quality Status Report - Synthesis Report 2010. Wadden Sea Ecosystem No. 29 (Wim J. Wolff, Jan P. Bakker, Karsten Laursen, Karsten Reise)

Common Wadden Sea Secretariat,

New assessment

6, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 27, 35, 36

National Dutch part of the North Sea

Broad assessment

Deltares 2011: Initial Assessment Implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework - Directive for the Dutch part of the North Sea - Background document 1 (of 3)

Deltares New assessment

4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 35, 36

Regional Baltic sea Narrow assessment

EEA 2002: Europe's biodiversity - biogeographical regions and seas - The Baltic Sea - the largest brackish sea in the world.

EEA Not included in the Gramed database

6, 11, 34,35, 36


HELCOM 2007: Marine litter in the Baltic Sea Region - Assessment of the Marine Litter problem in the Baltic region and priorities for response.

HELCOM Not included in Gramed

17, 25, 27


HELCOM 2007: Towards a Baltic sea unaffected by eutrophication - HELCOM Overview

HELCOM Not included in Gramed

20


HELCOM 2011: Fifth Baltic Sea Pollution Load Compilation (PLC-5) - Baltic Sea Environment Proceedings No. 128.

HELCOM Updated assessment

17, 18, 20, 21


Baltic Nest Institute 2012: External nutrient loads to the Baltic Sea, 1970-2006 Technical Report No. 5

Baltic Nest Institute

New assessment

20

18

Regional Baltic sea Broad assessment

HELCOM 2010: Towards a tool for quantifying anthropogenic pressures and potential impacts on the Baltic Sea marine environment. A background document on the method, data and testing of the Baltic Sea Pressure and Impact Indices (Baltic Sea Environment Proceedings No. 125)

HELCOM New assessment

11, 12, 17, 20


Baltic Environmental Forum 2000: 2nd Baltic state of the Environment report based on environmental indicators.

Baltic Environmental Forum

Not included in the Gramed database

11, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22


BACC - BALTEX (Baltic Sea Experiment) 2008: Assessment of Climate Change for the Baltic Sea Basin

BALTEX (Baltic Sea Experiment)

New assessment

4, 5, 6, 11, 20, 35

Regional Baltic sea Broad assessment

HELCOM 2010: Ecosystem Health of the Baltic Sea HELCOM Initial Holistic Assessment - Baltic Sea Environment Proceedings No. 122.


6, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 34, 35, 36


HELCOM 2010: Hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea - An integrated thematic assessment of hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea - Baltic Sea Environment Proceedings No. 120B.

HELCOM Updated assessment

20, 21, 22, 23,


HELCOM 2010: Maritime Activities in the Baltic Sea An integrated thematic assessment on maritime activities and response to pollution at sea in the Baltic Sea region - Baltic Sea Environment Proceedings No.123


17, 19, 21, 22


OCEANA 2012: Fisheries management in the Baltic Sea - How to get on track to a sustainable future in Baltic fisheries.

OCEANA New assessment

11, 15

Regional Mediterranean

Narrow assessment

EEA, 2002: Europe's biodiversity - biogeographical regions and seas -Seas around Europe - The Mediterranean sea - blue oxygen-rich, nutrient-poor waters


6, 11, 20, 34, 35


Narrow assessment

UNEP MAP/RAC-SPA 2003: Effects of fishing practices on the Mediterranean Sea: Impact on marine sensitive habitats and species, technical solution and recommendations.

UNEP MAP/RAC-SPA

Not included in Gramed

11 and Part VI


Narrow assessment

IUCN 2008. Maritime traffic effects on biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea: Review of impacts, priority areas and mitigation measures. Ameer Abdulla, PhD, Olof Linden, PhD (editors).

IUCN New assessment

17, 18, 25, 36


Broad assessment

UNEP MAP 2012: Initial Integrated Assessment of the Mediterranean sea – fulfilling step 3 of the ecosystem approach process

UNEP/MAP New assessment

6, 11, 17, 18, 20, 27, 34, 35, 36


Narrow assessment

UNEP-MAP-RAC/SPA. 2010. Fisheries conservation management and vulnerable ecosystems in the Mediterranean open seas, including the deep sea.

UNEP-MAP-RAC/SPA

New assessment

11 and Part VI

19


Narrow assessment

MWO, Mediterranean Wetland Observatory 2012: Mediterranean Wetlands Outlook. First Mediterranean Wetlands Observatory report – Synthesis for decision makers

Tour du Valat / Mediterranean Wetlands Observatory (MWO)

New assessment

34, 35, 36


Narrow assessment

UNEP/MAP MEDPOL 2011: Hazardous substances in the Mediterranean - A spatial and temporal assessment - Consultation Meeting to Review MED POL Monitoring Activities

UNEP/MAP MEDPOL

New assessment

20


Narrow assessment

Cuttelod, A., García, N., Abdul Malak, D., Temple, H. and Katariya, V. 2008. The Mediterranean: a biodiversity hotspot under threat.

IUCN New assessment

34, 35, 36


Narrow assessment

UNEP/MAP-MED POL/WHO 2008 : Assessment of the state of microbial pollution in the Mediterranean Sea.

UNEP/MAP-MED POL/WHO:

Updated 12, 20, 21


Narrow assessment

Coll,M., Piroddi, C., Steenbeek, J., et al., 2010: The biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea: estimates, patterns, and threats. PLoS ONE 5 (8)

PLoS ONE New assessment

34, 35, 36


Narrow assessment

UNEP/MAP/MEDPOL Releases, emissions and sources of pollutants in the Mediterranean region - An assessment of 2003-2008 trends

UNEP MAP/MEDPOL

New assessment

20

Regional Mediterranean and Black sea

Narrow assessment

FAO 2009: Regional study on small tunas in the Mediterranean including the Black Sea including the Black Sea,

FAO New assessment

11, 12, 36


Narrow assessment

Abdul Malak, D. et al. 2011 : Overview of the Conservation Status of the Marine Fishes of the Mediterranean Sea

IUCN New assessment

34, 35, 36


Broad assessment

Mangos, A., Bassino, J-P., Sauzade, D. 2010: The economic value of sustainable benefits rendered by the Mediterranean marine ecosystems – Plan Bleu

Plan Bleu New assessment

11, 12, 27, 36, 43


Broad assessment

UNEP MAP/Plan Bleu 2008: The Blue Plan’s Sustainable development outlook in the Mediterranean,

UNEP MAP/Plan Bleu

New assessment

4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 17, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 36


Broad assessment

UNEP/MAP-Plan Bleu 2009: State of the Environment and Development in the Mediterranean.

UNEP MAP/Plan Bleu

New assessment

4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 36


Narrow assessment

IDDRI, 2009: The Future of the Mediterranean: from impacts of climate change to adaptation issues

IDDRI New assessment

4, 5, 27


Narrow assessment

UNEP-MAP RAC/SPA 2010: The Mediterranean Sea Biodiversity: state of the ecosystems, pressures, impacts and future priorities.

UNEP-MAP RAC/SPA

New assessment

34, 35, 36


Narrow assessment

UNEP-MAP-RAC/SPA, 2010. Impact of climate change on marine and coastal biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea: Current state of knowledge..

UNEP-MAP-RAC/SPA, 2010

New assessment

4, 5, 6, 11, 17, 35, 36

20


Narrow assessment

UNEP MAP 2012: State of the Mediterranean coastal and marine environment - Highlights for policy makers

UNEP MAP New assessment

4, 6, 11, 12, 17, 20, 21, 34, 35, 36,


Narrow assessment

Plan Bleu 2010: Maritime Transport of Goods in the Mediterranean. Plan Bleu, Valbonne, 2010 (Blue Plan Papers 7).

Plan Bleu New assessment

17, 18


Narrow assessment

Abdul Malak, D. et al. 2011: Overview of the Conservation Status of the Marine Fishes of the Mediterranean Sea. Gland, Switzerland and Malaga, Spain

IUCN New assessment

34, 35, 36


Narrow assessment

UNEP/MAP, MEDPOL 2011: Assessment of the status of marine litter in the Mediterranean

UNEP MAP, MEDPOL

New assessment

25, 36

Regional Black Sea Narrow assessment

EEA, 2002: Europe's biodiversity - biogeographical regions and seas: The Black Sea an oxygen-poor sea. by Zaitsev Yu.P., B.G. Alexandrov, N.A. Berlinsky, & A. Zenetos. Environmental issue report Published by EEA (European Environment Agency) Copenhagen 2002


06, 11, 20, 34, 35

Global Black Sea Broad assessment

Heileman, S., W. Parr, and G. Volovik. 2009: Chapter V-8 Black Sea LME in Sherman, K. and Hempel, G. (Eds). The UNEP Large Marine Ecosystem Report: A perspective on changing conditions in LMEs of the world’s Regional Seas. UNEP Regional Seas, Report and Studies No. 182. United Nations Environment Programme. Nairobi, Kenya, pp 839.

UNEP New Assessment

04, 06, 11, 15, 20


Black Sea Commission 2009: Marine Litter in the Black Sea Region. Black Sea Commission.

Black Sea Commission.

New Assessment

25


GFCM 2010: Draft document on the Alien Species in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea (By Bayram Ozturk) – Scientific Advisory Committee, Twelfth Session Budva, Montenegro, 25-29 January 2010. GFCM:SAC12/2010/Dma.1

GFCM New Assessment

11, 17, 36


GFCM 2008: Strengthening Cooperation in the Black Sea - Thirty-Second Session -Rome, Italy, 25-29th February 2008.

GFCM New Assessment

11, 15, 36


GFCM 2012: Background Document on the Black Sea Fisheries Preliminary Version- First meeting of the GFCM Working Group on the Black Sea. Constanta, Romania, 16-18 January 2012

GFCM New Assessment

11, 15, 36

Not included in Gramed: stands for an assessment produced before 2008 but that was no included in the Gramed database New assessment: means that the assessment is not included has been published after 2008 and that is not either an updated assessment. Updated assessment: recent updated assessment of an assessment included in Gramed (part of a monitoring cycle).

Table 5: Overview of assessments analysed in the individual templates for the 4 seas

21

8. Gap analysis

Based on the information collected through the individual templates, the following section contains for each of the four marine regions, a gap analysis related to the knowledge gathered and issues covered by recent assessments. This review draws on available data and information analysed by scanning the recent existing literature (2008-2012), but does not attempt to provide a comprehensive synopsis of information on all aspects related to the European marine areas nor to give a complete picture of the state of the supra-regional environment. The proposed overview is based on the analysis of the assessments collected and reviewed by mean of individual templates and due to the complexity and the range of challenging issues, represents only a first subjective appraisal of the main gaps related to the issues included in the 4 building blocks of the UNRP outline namely (i) ecosystem services from the marine environment (other than provisioning services); (ii) food security; (iii) Marine biological diversity and habitats and (iv) human activities impacting on the marine environment.

Every issue that covers the Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment, includes numerous complex and interlinked sub-issues. For instance “Coastal, riverine and atmospheric inputs from land” (future chapter 1956) includes Municipal waste water (including the impact of major cities and of cruise ships in harbours) industrial discharge, Agricultural runoff and emissions, Eutrophication etc. For each issue, the most salient issue that was addressed by the assessments has been considered as representative of the category. For instance, in that case Eutrophication has been used as “representative” of the “Coastal, riverine and atmospheric inputs from land” category. When no issue was considered prevailing, the combination of several sub-issues addressed in several chapters of the assessments have been considered to obtain an appraisal. The chapter 3 of the marine AoA and related findings for Europe’s seas, has been used as the basic informative entry point. The following analysis, in spite of its evident shortcomings, foresees to provide a basis for discussing and highlighting information gaps or overlaps that require specific attention within the framework of the UNRRP.

In order to get a certain level of consistency, the same evaluation criteria used for the Assessment of Assessments (marine AoA chapter 3) are used to conduct the gap analysis (i.e. extensive; good; some; none; unknown). Tables 6-9 covered mostly all the issues of the UNRP outline. Due to time constraints, specific analysis of the issues is provided as an example only for Eutrophication and nutrient enrichment issue.

Region/theme Hydrological cycle

Sea/Air interaction

Primary production & Cycling of nutrients,

Carbonate production

Aesthetic & cultural, ecosystem services

NE Atlantic

?

Baltic Sea

?

Mediterranean

Black Sea

Table 6: Gap analysis Ecosystem Services

56 http://www.un.org/Depts/los/global_reporting/global_reporting.htm

http://www.un.org/Depts/los/global_reporting/global_reporting.htm

22

Region/theme Capture fisheries

Aquaculture Seaweeds Social and economic aspects

NE Atlantic

?

Baltic Sea

?

Mediterranean

?

Black Sea

?

Table 7: Gap analysis - Food Security

Region/theme Coral Seagrass and eel-grass beds

Saltmarsh Deep sea Migratory species

Endangered species

NE Atlantic

Baltic Sea

Mediterranean

Black Sea /

Table 8: Gap analysis – Marine Biological diversity and habitats

Region/theme Shipping Ports Submarine cables and pipelines

Inputs from land

Offshore hydrocarbon industries

Other marine-based energy industries

NE Atlantic

Baltic Sea

Mediterranean

Black Sea

Region/theme Offshore mining industries

Marine debris

Land/sea physical interaction

Tourism and recreation

NE Atlantic

Baltic Sea

Mediterranean

Black Sea ?

Table 9: Gap analysis – Human activities impacting the marine environment

extensive

good

some

none ? Unknown – Not enough information available through the collected assessment reports

23

Eutrophication

Marine eutrophication is a major issue of concern in European regional seas (e.g. EEA, 201057) and is generally well monitored and documented, back-up by the European legislation and the sea convention protocols or strategies. However, different structures of the seas, feedback mechanisms and pressures such overfishing interact to create specific regional responses to nutrient over-enrichment. Monitoring and comparing the eutrophic state of Europe’s seas is further complicated by the different indicators and assessment methods used across the regions. Over the years considerable efforts have been put into a compilation of consistent estimates of nutrient as sound assessment of eutrophication requires knowledge of the long-term dynamics of nutrient inputs. In order to tackle the problem, satellite remote sensing of chlorophyll concentration is increasingly used to provide timely estimates of the biological productivity, being complemented by in-situ measurements for validation purposes.

European policies largely address the Eutrophication issue. In particular, from 2012, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive requires all Member States to monitor eutrophication in their seas using consistent indicators and similar collecting data methods. In addition, Regional sea Conventions (Barcelona, Bucharest, OSPAR and HELCOM) consider struggling against eutrophication an important objective and monitoring and assessing the conditions of waters a key task to be regularly carried out. The Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) in 2007 recognizes for instance the need to reduce nutrient inputs to a maximum allowable level and corresponding country-wise nutrient reduction requirements for nitrogen and phosphorus in order to achieve a good environmental status by 2021. Marine eutrophication is considered responsible of various disruptive effects such as green tides, phytoplankton blooms, deep-water anoxia and changes in fish population. According to HELCOM, eutrophication continues to be of major concern in most areas of the Baltic Sea and good environmental status has not been reached yet58. In addition, the Baltic sea, unlike the other European regional seas, suffers from cyanobacterial blooms, a phenomenon more typical of eutrophic freshwater environments59. Capacity assessment including scenarios, indicator based monitoring and reporting and trend analyses on eutrophication is high, as witnessed by the HELCOM 2011: Fifth Baltic Sea Pollution Load Compilation (see Table 5). Although the degree of detailed information varies, monitoring and assessment of eutrophication and oxygen deficiency are commonly well addressed by Baltic Sea countries. HELCOM like other regional sea conventions has to deal with whatever data officially provided by the contracting parties, ending up with certain gaps and inconsistencies in the data sets (e.g. HELCOM, 201160). The 2012 Baltic Nest Institute 201261 is a valuable source of supporting information as it attempted to fill the gaps in and correct possible sources of inconsistencies.

Although relatively nutrient poor, eutrophication hotspots are found throughout the Mediterranean sea such as in the Adriatic basin and specific coastal and adjacent offshore areas and is considered a priority issue in in the coastal zone of Mediterranean (e.g. EEA 200662). Prevention of the Human-induced eutrophication is one of the UNEP MAP “Ecological Objectives" for the Mediterranean agreed in 2008 in the framework of the adoption of the roadmap for implementing ecosystem approach. However, coordinated eutrophication assessment is still hampered over the region by inconsistent reporting methods between countries and sometimes inconclusive data for determining eutrophic status. In particular, Mediterranean countries in most cases undertake classical monitoring activities but not all the countries monitor all parameters required by the MED POL strategy. The majority followed national or other strategies. In a number of countries, national eutrophication assessment methods are performed under EU directives or conventions obligations. The TRIX index has already been used in some European countries for classification of trophic status, due to its simplicity of application.

The Northern Adriatic hotspot appears to be recovering as a result of nutrient load abatement policies. Although improvements in sea water have been reported also in the Black Sea, this has mainly been linked to the post-Soviet economic decline and agricultural practice changes. Coincident with the current trend of recovery of economies in the region, there is risk that pollution discharges will again increase, particularly from agricultural diffuse sources. The recent EU directives exert a strong legislative framework for

57 EEA 2010: 10 messages for 2010 Marine ecosystems, EEA, Copenhagen, 2010 58 HELCOM, 2010: Ecosystem Health of the Baltic Sea 2003–2007: HELCOM Initial Holistic Assessment. Balt. Sea Environ. Proc. No. 122 59 Langmead, O., McQuatters-Gollop, A. and Mee, L.D. (eds.) 2007: European Lifestyles and Marine Ecosystems: Exploring Challenges for Managing

Europe’s Seas (ELME). University of Plymouth Marine Institute, Plymouth – included in GRAMED database. 60 HELCOM, 2011. Fifth Baltic Sea Pollution Load Compilation (PLC-5). Balt. Sea Environ. Proc. No. 128, 217 pp – included in the Templates. 61

Baltic Nest Institute 2012: External nutrient loads to the Baltic Sea, 1970-2006 Technical Report No. 5 62 EEA, 2006a: Priority issues in the Mediterranean environment, European Environment Agency Report No 4/2006 – included in the GRAMED database

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implementing change within the Danube region and parts of the Black Sea leading to improved monitoring procedures and enforcement of regulations.

In the Black sea, the Danube River is considered the largest single source of pollutant inputs into the Black Sea, and especially for nutrient’s. The 2005 GIWA assessment63 provides relevant information on Eutrophication process and trends and analyses the causes behind eutrophication. Root causes of eutrophication in the Black Sea Basin are identified and the report recognizes that its impacts have been amplified by other factors such as overfishing. The Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis for the Black sea64 is also an essential document that gathers information on pollution and analyses causal chains. The report broadly assesses the environmental status of the Black Sea and includes estimates of sectoral pressures, particularly those associated with nutrient fluxes and eutrophication. However many gap persist in the Black Sea related to pollution inputs form land and the pollution loads data are very incomplete, BOD5 being the only parameter (apart from nutrients) that is routinely monitored from major point sources and rivers. In addition, diffuse source pollution are not assessed in the region due to lack of information.

Eutrophication in the north-East Atlantic is rather restricted to semi-enclosed seas and coastal waters, such as the southern North Sea65. Eutrophication is one of the five OSPAR’s core thematic strategies and sets out the objective to combat eutrophication in the OSPAR maritime area. In 1997, the OSPAR Commission adopted the so called Common Procedure for the identification of the eutrophication status of the Maritime Area of the OSPAR Convention. High quality assessment are regularly produced as witnessed by the QSR 2010 assessment (see Table 5). Five assessment parameters and their assessment levels as defined by the Common Procedure have been developed to form an integrated set of Ecological Quality Objectives (EcoQO) for eutrophication for the North Sea 66

However, separating the effects of eutrophication from the combining effect of natural and anthropogenic pressures (such as climate shifts and overfishing) is still very challenging in assessing eutrophication impacts.. In that context, monitoring programmes under the Marine Strategy Directive are expected to greatly contribute to better understand cross- effects and help policy-makers prioritise their actions.

9. Conclusion

Environmental challenges are increasing in scale and implications, as grows the demand for scientific knowledge to inform and support sound decision making. Hopefully, environmental Assessment is an evolving and dynamic field as witnessed by the plethora of recent reports and publications on a variety of coastal and marine environmental issues over Europe and beyond.

The present report foresaw to inventory and suggest new and recent marine assessments that may be relevant for the UN Regional Regular Process for Europe. This inventory may also be a contribution in order to update the GRAMED database, that turned out to be a meaningful informative tool to support marine assessment-related activities. The report also gave an insight on the evolution over the last 5 years and included a first attempt to provide a gap analysis across the 4 regional European seas. However, considering the high differences between regions in terms of the quality, quantity and availability of information, socio-economic setting and environmental conditions, the achievement of comparability is particularly challenging.

The use of individual templates provide relatively consistent information on assessment products that allow to appraise the extent and comprehensiveness of assessments across regions. However the analysis would require a further systematic expert judgment process to get an accurate vision of the prevailing gaps related to the issues tackled by the 4 building blocks of the UNRP outline.

In the light of the information provided by the individual templates, the following commonalities between assessments and broad weaknesses can however be identified over the last 5 years:

63 Borysova, O., Kondakov, A., Paleari, S., Rautalahti-Miettinen, E., Stolberg, F. and D. Daler, 2005: Eutrophication in the Black Sea region; Impact

assessment and Causal chain analysis. GIWA, University of Kalmar, Kalmar, Sweden – included in GRAMED database 64 GEF 2007: Black Sea transboundary diagnostic analysis. Programme Coordinating Unit, Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Black Sea Environmental

Programme publication – included in GRAMED database 65 Langmead, O., McQuatters-Gollop, A. and Mee, L.D. (eds.) 2007: European Lifestyles and Marine Ecosystems: Exploring Challenges for Managing

Europe’s Seas (ELME). University of Plymouth Marine Institute, Plymouth – included in GRAMED database. 66 http://www.ospar.org/content/content.asp?menu=00190303000000_000000_000000

http://www.noordzeeloket.nl/ecoqos/en/

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• No assessment can be considered fully exhaustive as they typically capture a particular understanding of complexes issues at a certain time. The capacity to produce and update thematic (narrow) assessments report on a regularly basis is therefore of key importance. The regional sea conventions (OSPAR, Helsinki, Barcelona and Bucharest Conventions) gave rise to regional action plans which give specific goals and targets for the regional sea and produce regular assessment mechanisms;

• Assessment capacity is generally strong over Europe and many high quality updated assessment have been recently produced. Integrated (broad) assessments are available for the 4 regional seas reflecting progresses in addressing more deeply effects of multiple stressors combining at global and regional scales;

• As a general rule, over recent assessment marine water quality and pollution related assessments along with pressure analysis are prevailing followed by assessments related to living marine resources;

• Most of the assessments surveyed had clearly stated objectives while the process that is under and a clear conceptual framework of the assessment approach are often not clearly specified;

• Assessments generally well identify main drivers of human development and associated pressures that, along with natural processes, affect the state and trends of the marine environment. However, fewer still fully incorporate multiple pressures from the anthropogenic use of the marine resources and related cross-effects. Thematic assessments (pressure based) are prevailing and quantitative impact assessments of multiple human threats and related impacts on marine habitats have rarely been conducted at a Regional level. Regional assessments of human-driven impacts may consider that threats on habitats do not act in isolation;

• An ecosystem approach to the management of the marine environment has received considerable attention over recent years. However, integration level of socio-economic issues appears to be still weak in spite of some recent progresses;

• Assessment of impacts of human activities is be still too much based on qualitative information and information. In particular gaps in the knowledge related to biodiversity and habitats appear to be a major constraint;

• A major challenge facing the regional assessment practices, is the lack of information on both cumulative and synergistic effects. For instance, climate variations and ecosystem perturbations are both key threatening processes driving the regional loss in biodiversity. Yet too little is known about synergistic effects on biological populations due to the complexity of underlying processes.

10. Annexes

Annex 1: List of the GRAMED assessments for the European Seas; Annex 2: Completed templates for individual assessments for the North Atlantic, Baltic, Mediterranean and Black Seas; Annex 3: Other potential relevant assessments and source of information.