Marine Advice, Monitoring & Research at CEFAS

Mike Waldock

Advisory Activities and the Environment

Aggregate extraction

OCNS Oil spills

Pipelines

Dredging and disposal

Diffuse Inputs

Riverine

Boating/shipping

Monitoring Marine Environmental Quality

• Validates our risk assessments - feedback loop

• Integrates effort from a number of Departments and Agencies to meet Defra needs to demonstrate sustainable development

• Potentially provides clear measures of our performance in managing marine systems.

Environment Quality Monitoring

OSPAR/EC

MEMG

NMMP

MEMG –Marine Environment Monitoring Group formally the MPMMG - Marine Pollution Monitoring Management Group 7 UK organisations

NMMP - National Marine Monitoring Programme

NMMP

•Chemistry•Contaminants in water sediment and biota

•Nutrients in water

•Biological effects•toxicity

•disease

•reproductive effects

•biochemical measurements

•Biology - •Benthic community

•Plankton community

Biological effects cont...

•Whole animal

imposex

Biological effects Cont...

•cellular/GM

•biochemical measurements

Mutatox--mutagens

er calux/yes/yas - EDCs

dr calux erod - oil/PCBs/dioxin

M/T- metals VTG - EDCs

Biological effects Cont...

•Genetic damage and disease

Progression of carcinogenesis

DNA adductInitiated cell

Renegade population of cells growing

outside constraints of normal cellular architecture

Cancerous pathology

Mutation or DNA repair?

Research Themes

• 70 plus R&D contracts with Defra – 40 plus at Cefas• And fisheries and fish health and aquaculture

Eutrophication Ecological Structure

& Function

Environmental Processes

& Pathways

HazardousSubstances

(Assessment,Fate & effects)

Marine emergencies

Aggregate extraction

Deposits

Managing marine activities

Assessment of inputs to sea

Understanding the seas

Monitoring & Assessment

MARINE ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH PROGRAMME

Integrated Management

Monitoring & Assessment

ME11 ME12 ME13 ME14ME41

ME21ME22

ME31 ME32

30 ug/kg ww (lower BRC)

70 ug/kg ww (upper BRC)

140 ug/kg ww (close to background)

Mercury in fish tissue

Data relevant to the SW?

AEMR series

Better Integrated Monitoring

• 2004 “State of the Seas” report

Fisheries

Contaminants

Oceanography HabitatsEcosystem approach

International Obligations - OSPAR

Hazardous Substances

“by continuously reducing discharges, emissions and losses of hazardous substances with the ultimate aim of achieving concentrations .....near

background values for naturally occurring substances and close to zero for man-

made synthetic substances”

International Obligations - OSPAR

Eutrophication

“to achieve and maintain a healthy marine environment where eutrophication does

not occur”

International Obligations - OSPARBiodiversity

“to protect and conserve the ecosystems and the biological diversity of the maritime area

which are, or could be, affected as a result of human activities, and to restore, where

practicable, marine areas which have been adversely affected.”

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 300

0.5

1

1.5

2

OH

OH

CCH3

CH

ETHYNYL OESTRADIOL

HO

CH3OH

OESTRADIOL

HO

CH3O

OESTRONE

Identification of causative substances

Changes to the monitoring strategy using the DPSIR framework to

monitor performance

DrivingForce

Pressure State Impact Response

Nos of antifouledboats andships

InputsfromShipyardsand hulls

Conc. inwater/sed/biota

Imposexin whelksShellthicknessin oysters

Small boatban 1987

IMO ban2003

Causal Chain

Changes to the monitoring strategy Altering timing and effort

time

effort

trend programme

spatial survey

Changes to the monitoring strategy Altering timing

Nutrient monitoring requires frequent observations

Changes to the monitoring strategy Altering timing

• fluorescence

• temp.

• salinity

• turbidity

• nutrients

• irradiance

Changes to the monitoring strategy Quality Assurance

• QUASIMEME• BEQUALM• NATAQC

ring tests so that all data is comparable

North Sea

Nonylphenol (ug/g)

5 to 45

4 to 53 to 42 to 31 to 20 to 1