DEVelopment Of innovative Tools for understanding marine biodiversity and assessing good Environmental Status: indicators for a healthy ocean

Angel Borja

3rd and 4th March 2014, Brussels

Improve our understanding of the impact of human activities and climate change on marine biodiversity.

Identify barriers and bottlenecks that prevent Good Environmental Status (GEnS) from being achieved

Test indicators and develop new, innovative ones to assess biodiversity in a harmonized way throughout the 4 regional seas.

Develop, test and validate innovative integrative modelling and monitoring tools to improve our understanding of ecosystem and biodiversity changes, for integration into a unique and holistic assessment

Propose and disseminate strategies and measures for ecosystems’ adaptive management, including the active role of industry and relevant stakeholders

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WP1: ’Human pressures and climate change’.

WP2: ‘Socio-economic implications of GEnS’.

WP3: ‘Indicator testing and development’.

WP4: ‘Innovative modelling tools’.

WP5:’Innovative monitoring techniques

WP6: ‘Integrative assessment’

WP7: ‘Outreach, stakeholder engagement and product dissemination’.

Challenges and objectives

Interaction pressure-impact-climate change

Cost-benefit measures

Role of indicators

GEnS meaning

Reduce monitoring costs

New assessment tools

Integration of data

Participation of stakeholders

Public awareness

Challenges Objectives Work Packages

DEVOTool: a help for stakeholders

http://www.devotes-project.eu/deliverables-and-milestones/

DEVOTool software version 0.64 Deliverable 3.1

Main sources of information

EU Member States whose indicators reported in the MSFD Initial Assessment Report are included in the DEVOTES Catalogue of Indicators (green)

• Water Framework Directive (WFD)

• Habitats Directive (HD)

• Birds Directive (BD)

• Common Fisheries Policy (CFP)

• Regional Sea Conventions (HELCOM

and OSPAR so far…)

• Non-EU countries and initiatives

• Scientific literature

European Union MS Non-European Union countries

Belgium

Bulgaria

Cyprus

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Ireland

Latvia

Lithuania

Netherlands

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Slovenia

Spain

Sweden

United Kingdom

Australia

Djibouti

Egypt

Israel

Jordan

Norway

Saudi Arabia Somalia

Sudan

Ukraine

USA

Yemen

Main results from DEVOTool

• The catalogue includes 557 marine biodiversity indicators

• and information on metadata associated to each indicator such as:

– indicator descriptions

– data requirements

– assignment to MSFD descriptors/criteria/indicators

– developmental status of the indicator (e.g. operational, under development, etc.)

– geographical coverage (e.g. Official MS subdivisions, country, etc.).

– applicable habitats (e.g. seabed, water column, ice habitats)

– biodiversity components (e.g. phytoplankton, benthic invertebrates, etc.)

– related pressures, (e.g. marine litter, physical damage, etc.), etc.

Indicator properties and other related information

Descriptors

Criteria and indicators

Biodiversity components

Habitat types

Pressures

Geographical range

Existing monitoring programmes

Thematic structure of the eight main topics in the Catalogue of Indicators

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D9 D10 D11 D3 D8 D2 D7 D5 D6 D4 D1

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Potential to address MSFD descriptors

considering the 538 indicators for which such information was reported

number of indicators (and their development status) addressing the different descriptors, and

split into indicators addressing one or several descriptor

Potential to address biodiversity

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Microbes Pelagicinvertebr. Cephalopods Rep les Birds Zooplankton Marinmammals Angiosperms Macroalgae Phytoplankton Fish Benthicinvertebr.

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number of indicators (and their delevelopment status) per biodiversity component with indicator status and split into indicators addressing one

or several components

Potential to address specific pressures number of indicators (and their development status) responding to the different pressures and split into indicators responding to one or several pressures

NE: nutrient and organic enrichment PD: physical damage PL: physical loss HP: interference with hydrology O: other

PE: acute pollution events CNS: contamination by non-synthetic CS: contamination by synthetic EC: extraction of species NIS: non-indigenous species

Indicators’ availability per regional sea

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NonEURegionalSeas BlackSea MeditererraneanSea Bal cSea North-EastAtlan cOcean

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number of indicators (and their development status) per marine region and split into indicators addressing one or further marine regions

DEVOTool - functionalities

Several analyses (e.g. on most promising indicators) can be performed and basic statistics obtained.

Furthermore it offers also the possibility of:

1. Selecting indicators from the catalogue (using catalogue metadata for

queries)

2. Scoring and ranking indicators (using pre-defined criteria, ad-hoc or pre-

costumized – see for example next slide main questions)

DEVOTool - functionalities

Main thematic questions Beneficiaries or interested parties

Q1. Most promising operational indicators to be

used in environmental assessment programs

Member States, RSC, stakeholders and managers

Q2. Most promising indicators for further

development Research groups, R&D funding agencies

Q3. Most promising indicators for large scale

Marine Policies Wide scale conservation policies/strategies

Main thematic questions driving indicators selection for which there are criteria available in the DEVOTES catalogue database. Beneficiaires or potentially interested parties are indicated for each main theme:

Major gaps identified

• In relation to Descriptors:

– Need to develop indicators working on ecosystem level.

– Lack of indicators for the genetic structure of population.

– Lack of indicators to assess the effects of non-indigenous species

– Overlap between some indicators in Biodiversity and Seafloor integrity

• In Biodiversity lack of indicators for:

– Microbes, pelagic invertebrates and reptiles to be developed

– Ice-associated species and communities

– Abyssal and bathyal habitats

• In relation to pressures:

– The reliability of indicators showing effects of pressures to be demonstrated

• In the status of development of the indicators:

– Many of the operational indicators not report targets

– Most indicators lack measure of confidence or uncertainty in results

3rd and 4th March, Brussels

Dr Ángel Borja (aborja@azti.es) ResearchGate Profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angel_Borja/ Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=245091062&trk=tab_pro