Development of a OSPAR Common Set Biodiversity Indicators
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Development of a OSPAR common set biodiversity indicators Version: 18 January 2013 Prepared by the OSPAR Intersessional Correspondence Group on the Coordination of Biodiversity Assessment and Monitoring (ICG-COBAM) for the OSPAR Biodiversity Committee, 2013. Disclaimer This is a living document that builds on the OSPAR MSFD Advice Manual on Biodiversity and reflects the state of discussion at expert level at the time of its drafting. The document is of a non-binding nature and aims at facilitating coordination between the EU Member States that are parties to the OSPAR Convention, with regard to the development of common biodiversity indicators for MSFD Descriptors 1, 2, 4 and 6. It does not prejudice the on going decision-making processes in Contracting Parties and their final conclusions on reporting under the MSFD. The document will be further developed by ICG-COBAM in the coming meeting cycle to support on going implementation of the Directive. 1 _________________________________________________________________________________________________ OSPAR Commission Ver.18 Jan 2013/Living document on common biodiversity indicator development Contents Part A. Process for selecting indicators .......................................................................... 3 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 3 1.1 What are common indicators? ............................................................................................ 3 1.2 Role of the Intersessional Correspondence Group for the Coordination of Biodiversity Assessment and Monitoring (ICG-COBAM) .............................................................................. 4 2. Process of selecting common biodiversity indicators ........................................................ 5 2.1 Expert groups ..................................................................................................................... 5 2.2 Steps taken by expert groups ............................................................................................. 6 3. Proposed indicators for endorsement as OSPAR common biodiversity indicators ......... 9 4. Overview of indicators and gap analysis ........................................................................... 11 4.1 MSFD criteria and proposed common biodiversity indicators ............................................ 11 4.2 Pressures and proposed common biodiversity indicators ................................................. 15 4.3 EcoQOs and proposed common biodiversity indicators .................................................... 20 4.4 Results of the Questionaire to Contracting Parties ............................................................ 21 5. Monitoring ............................................................................................................................ 23 6. Next steps ............................................................................................................................ 27 References ............................................................................................................................... 27 PART B. Abstracts of proposed common biodiversity indicators .......................................... 27 PART C. Technical specifications of common biodiversity indicators ................................... 43 Part A is intended to explain how the indicators have been selected and how they, as a set, address the needs for assessing biodiversity aspects of the MSFD and OSPAR's Strategy, Part B is intended to communicate the basis and purpose of each indicator, and Part C describes in detail the indicators, their level of development, and their application in environmental assessments. 2 _________________________________________________________________________________________________ OSPAR Commission Ver.18 Jan 2013/Living document on common biodiversity indicator development Part A. Process for selecting indicators 1. Introduction The first implementation cycle of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requires EU Member States to develop a marine strategy that includes: 1) reporting current environmental status, determining characteristics of good environmental status (GES) and establishing environmental targets and associated indicators by 15 July 2012; 2) establishing monitoring programmes to assess environmental status by 15 July 2014; and 3) developing programmes of measures by 2015 that should be implemented by 2016, with the overarching aim to achieve GES in the marine waters of EU member states by 2020. The MSFD stipulates that strategies that relate to the same marine region or sub-region need to be coherent, coordinated, and have common approaches where possible. This is to ensure that Member States work together to implement each stage of the Directive in order to ensure comparability across Europe and coherence across marine regions. OSPAR is the main platform for coordinating the MSFD implementation process within the North-East Atlantic region. To facilitate the 2012 reporting requirements OSPAR has provided a framework for the development of coordinated environmental targets and indicators and developed ‘Advice documents’ for a majority of the 11 MSFD descriptors that should be considered when determining GES, including for the biodiversity descriptors 1, 2, 4 and 6. To support OSPAR Contracting Parties with the continued implementation of the MSFD, the OSPAR Joint Assessment and Monitoring Programme is to be updated by 2014. A structure for coordinated monitoring and assessment is already more or less present for several MSFD Descriptors (D) e.g. for D5 Eutrophication (e.g. OSPAR Comprehensive Procedure) and for D8 Hazardous Substances (e.g. EU WFD, OSPAR CEMP). OSPAR Ecological Quality Objectives (EcoQOs), currently only applicable to the North Sea, can also be directly used to fulfil some of the criteria for determining GES for biodiversity that are outlined in the Commission Decision on criteria and methodological standards on good environmental status (2010/477/EC). Still, operational indicators and targets for biodiversity are generally less developed than for other MSFD descriptors and the development of coordinated biodiversity monitoring in accordance with the MSFD requires that EU Member States agree on what needs to be monitored and how. For OSPAR Contracting Parties this is defined firstly through identification of a common set of indicators and their application. This includes identifying: the parameters to measure, the spatial and temporal monitoring requirements needed to support the indicators, and defining the baselines and GES-boundaries/targets that are needed to assess the indicators. 1.1 What are common indicators? The Biodiversity Committee in 2012 requested ICG-COBAM “based on the prioritised suite of common indicators, make progress on their definition and operational implementation in monitoring programmes for 2014, delivering an initial set to BDC 2013”. This initial set of common biodiversity indicators has been developed to enable an assessment of the state of the North-East-Atlantic marine environment and to measure progress towards the achievement of good environmental status. It comprises state, pressure and impact indicators, covers all major groups of ecosystem components, and aims to address the biodiversity requirements of the EU MSFD, in particular covering the EU COM decision on criteria and methodological standards. It is intended to provide a regional basis for national biodiversity monitoring and assessment activities under the MSFD, and under analogous policies for Non-EU Contracting Parties. Article 5 of the EU MSFD requires that all elements of the national marine strategies are regionally coherent and coordinated. In the North East Atlantic, this is largely delivered through OSPAR as the relevant Regional Sea Convention (Art. 6). A basic and key item of regionally coherent strategies are common assessment 3 _________________________________________________________________________________________________ OSPAR Commission Ver.18 Jan 2013/Living document on common biodiversity indicator development methods and common indicators. OSPAR is consequently aiming to commonly agree upon a set of indicators for application by all OSPAR Contracting Parties. However, considering the wide variety of marine ecosystems within the OSPAR area, a set of common indicators should be considered as providing a framework for harmonized assessments, as several biodiversity indicators will require flexibility in their operationalization, depending on the differing characteristics of each sub-region. Thus, in some cases the implementation of common indicators will need to be tailored to those habitats and species characterising the marine waters of Contracting Parties and/or to the particular pressures in those waters. Other indicators targeted on specific ecosystem components (such as sea turtles) may have a spatially limited applicability due to natural distribution limits of species and/or habitat types. Taking such flexibility into account, it is the view of ICG-COBAM that the set of common indicators should be considered and applied as a whole across the OSPAR area by all Contracting Parties. In this sense they are considered complimentary to each other and aim to represent all major components of biodiversity and all main pressures from human activities. The concept of commonality in assessments is not