UNITED NATIONS EP/MED WG.498/Inf.4 UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME MEDITERRANEAN ACTION PLAN 10 May 2021 Original: English Third Meeting of the Barcelona Convention Offshore Oil and Gas Group (OFOG) Sub-Group on Environmental Impact Teleconference, 3-4 June 2021 Agenda item 5. Progress on the implementation of the Mediterranean Offshore Action Plan Study on trends and outlook of marine pollution from ships and activities and of maritime traffic and offshore activities in the Mediterranean For environmental and cost-saving reasons, this document is printed in a limited number. Delegates are kindly requested to bring their copies to meetings and not to request additional copies. UNEP/MAP Athens, 2021 Note by the Secretariat 1. At the 15th Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention - COP15, held in Almeria, Spain in January 2008, the Parties agreed to progressively apply the ecosystem approach (EcAp) to the management of human activities which may affect the Mediterranean marine and coastal environment for the promotion of sustainable development. With the adoption of the EcAp Strategy, and its Roadmap for implementation, Contracting Parties committed to implementing EcAp in the Mediterranean with the ultimate objective of achieving the Good Environmental Status (GES) of the Mediterranean Sea and its coastal zone by 2020. The GES was defined through eleven Ecological Objectives (EO) and the corresponding twenty-eight operational objectives. Operational objectives’ achievement is being monitored with the help of 61 indicators (27 common and 34 candidate indicators) for the Mediterranean, providing the framework for the development of an Integrated Monitoring and Assessment Programme (IMAP), as a way of evaluating the status and achievement of GES through regular assessments of the Mediterranean Sea and coastal environment. 2. IMAP describes the strategy, themes and products that the Barcelona Convention Contracting Parties aim to deliver, through collaborative efforts inside the UNEP/MAP Barcelona Convention, over the second cycle of the implementation of the Ecosystem Approach Process (EcAp process), i.e. over 2016-2021, in order to assess the status of the Mediterranean Sea and coast, as a basis for further and/or strengthened measures (UNEP (DEPI)/MED IG.22/28). 3. The Quality Status Report (QSR) in 2017 and the State of Environment and Development Report in 2019 are built on the structure, objectives and data collected under IMAP. The 2017 QSR is the first assessment product based on the MAP Ecological Objectives and IMAP indicators; it builds on existing data and is complemented with inputs from numerous diverse sources, where appropriate. 4. Regarding common indicator 19 “Occurrence, origin (where possible), the extent of acute pollution events (e.g. oil slicks, oil products and hazardous substances, and their impact on biota affected by this pollution”, related to the Ecological Objective 9 of IMAP, the 2017 MED QSR concludes that: “despite the progress achieved in mitigating oil spill incidents from ships, it is clear that continuous monitoring of illicit discharge occurrences, as well as cumulative effects and impacts, and continuous monitoring of accidental post-spill consequences on biota and ecosystems are necessary ”. 5. At the Thirteenth Meeting of the Focal Points of the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea (REMPEC) (Floriana, Malta, 11-13 June 2019), the Secretariat presented the MED QSR and the Status of Environment and Development (SoED), as well as the progress made in addressing identified gaps while proposing further measures to standardise monitoring and reporting formats for pollution from ships. Particular reference was made to the common indicator 19. 6. With a view to contributing to the preparation of the 2023 MED QSR, and in light of the gaps identified and related assessment exercises (for example, the SoED identified a lack of comprehensive knowledge about offshore activities), the Secretariat was requested to update existing information to prepare a Study on marine pollution from ships (accidental and operational pollution, marine litter, air pollution, etc...) as well as maritime traffic trends in the Mediterranean. 7. In order to achieve this objective, REMPEC, in collaboration with the Plan Bleu Regional Activity Centre (PB/RAC), the Mediterranean Pollution Assessment and Control Programme (MED POL), and the Specially Protected Areas Regional Activity Centre (SPA/RAC), prepared a study on trends and outlook on marine pollution from ships and activities and of maritime traffic and offshore activities in the Mediterranean, in the framework of the Programme of Work 2020-2021 of the Mediterranean Action Plan of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP/MAP). 8. The information provided in this Study reproduced in the Annex to the present document, has been collected through the review of a variety of literary sources: scientific and technical reports, policy briefs and guidelines, books and research articles, website content, etc. Data on a world-wide and a European scale was collected to draft the overview section for each of the main topics. For the description of pollution status and impact, data, examples and case studies exclusively from the Mediterranean were selected. As far as measures are concerned, (addressing pollution prevention, mitigation and remediation), an overview taking into consideration international, European and Mediterranean ones was compiled. The main focus was given to policy and governance measures but operative measures (tools, actions, pilot activities) were also compiled. Among all the identified literary sources, priority was given to the most recent ones (preferably published in the last 5 years), in order to provide as much as possible an updated picture of marine pollution from maritime traffic and offshore activities. As second criteria for literary source selection, priority was given to those presenting data with a regional or sub-regional geographic scope (e.g. Western Mediterranean, Adriatic Sea, etc.). Where this was not available, a compilation of site-specific data was undertaken, aiming to provide a good geographical coverage of the entire Mediterranean. 9. For the description of maritime traffic and oil and gas activities, and for related incidents and spills, the Lloyd's List Intelligence, the Clarkson Offshore database and the MEDGIS-MAR database were consulted. Moreover, this Study was completed with data and figures from a technical report on Maritime Traffic Trends in the Mediterranean for the period 2020-2050, prepared by REMPEC. 10. The IMAP system already includes Ecological Objectives and Common Indicators (or Candidate Indicators) useful for the scope of this Study, namely: a. EO2 Non-Indigenous species - Common Indicator 6: Trends in abundance, temporal occurrence, and spatial distribution of non-indigenous species, particularly invasive, non-indigenous species, notably in risk areas; b. EO3 Pollution - Common Indicator 19: Occurrence, origin – where possible, the extent of acute pollution events (e.g. oil slicks, oil products and hazardous substances), and their impact on biota affected by this pollution; c. EO10 Marine litter - Common Indicator 22: Trends in the amount of litter washed ashore and/or deposited on coastlines; Common Indicator 23: Trends in the amount of litter in the water column including microplastics on the seafloor; Candidate indicator 24: Trends in the amount of litter ingested by or entangling marine organisms, focusing on selected mammals, marine birds, and marine turtles; d. EO11: Energy including underwater noise: Candidate indicator 26: Proportion of days and geographical distribution where loud, low and mid-frequency impulsive sounds exceed levels likely to entail a significant impact on marine animals; Candidate indicator 27: Levels of continuous low frequency sounds with the use of models, as appropriate. 11. Implementation of IMAP is still in progress and the data related to these indicators is not yet available from the IMAP system, therefore this Study was based on external sources of information, as described above. 12. The conclusion chapter (chapter 4) presents a summary of key findings and elaborates on the future outlook on marine pollution. Moreover, knowledge gaps and recommendations related to each topic are also presented. A main cross-topic gap is represented by the lack of data at regional scale for the different typologies of pollution. As the IMAP system is still under implementation, data available (from research studies and projects) has generally limited geographic scope within the Mediterranean and often suffers from a lack of harmonization in methods, approaches, techniques, impairing comparability and limiting the possibility of delivering effective prevention and remediation measures. ANNEX Study on Trends and Outlook of Marine Pollution, Maritime Traffic and Offshore Activities in the Mediterranean MEDITERRANEAN ACTION PLAN (MAP) REGIONAL MARINE POLLUTION EMERGENCY RESPONSE CENTRE FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA (REMPEC) Study on trends and outlook of marine pollution from ships and activities and of maritime traffic and offshore activities in the Mediterranean October 2020 The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations (UN), the UNEP Mediterranean Action Plan (UNEP/MAP) and its Components,