List of Documents

The inconsistency in the determination of the Good Environmental Status for species assessment under the first cycle of the EU's Marine Strategy Framework Directive emerged in a harmonisation exercise. This exercise was launched with the species' identification of MSFD Descriptor's 1 concern and the collection of the operational or developing indicators and methods for the status assessment and classification of marine species. The latter was materialised with this report, by collecting information from several sources including the Regional Sea Conventions and the relevant marine and environment EU policies. The methodological standards and the threshold setting processes can be harmonised at three levels, to achieve consistent GES determination for the species assessed under the MSFD: i) MSFD criteria; ii) species groups, and iii) spatial scale. The next step will be to further evaluate the operability and suitability of these indicators and methods, associate them with data availability and propose the best possible option for the status classification of species at those three levels.

JRC produced reference lists of species and habitats for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), following the recommendations listed in the COM DEC 2017/848/EU and shared them with the marine biodiversity experts proposed by the EU Member States, for their evaluation. This task is part of the mandate to JRC (GES_18-2017-03) to facilitate Member States data entry, as part of the MSFD reporting obligations, in the EEA reporting web-forms, while increasing consistency and harmonization across Member States. The scope of this technical report is: i) to describe the methodology applied for the synthesis of the reference lists; ii) to provide directions to the experts to evaluate and update them; iii) to provide Member States with the possibility to consult the reference lists (embedded in this document) for any future MSFD related task.

COMMISSION DIRECTIVE (EU) 2017/845 of 17 May 2017 amending Directive 2008/56/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the indicative lists of elements to be taken into account for the preparation of marine strategies

COMMISSION DECISION (EU) 2017/848 of 17 May 2017 laying down criteria and methodological standards on good environmental status of marine waters and specifications and standardised methods for monitoring and assessment, and repealing Decision 2010/477/EU

The MSFD workshop on biodiversity (MSFD D1), held in Ispra JRC (7th-9th of September 2015) aimed to provide clear proposals and conclusions on some of the outstanding issues identified in the D1 review process and included in the review manual (D1 review version, May 2015: https://circabc.europa.eu/w/browse/46d2b7ba-d2fd-4b3c-9eaf-18c7cb702b53) in support to the review of Commission Decision 2010/477/EU.

This Regulation sets out rules to prevent, minimise and mitigate the adverse impact on biodiversity of the introduction and spread within the Union, both intentional and unintentional, of invasive alien species.

The report has the aim of contributing to the governance challenge of how to integrate the various aspects of marine policy (fisheries management, biodiversity conservation and marine environmental protection) as part of a coherent ecosystem approach. It considers how current science knowledge on marine ecosystems and the organisation of science can support an integrated approach to management of the seas. The report looks at a number of key aspects for sustainable development in changing oceans and seas, and particularly highlights the key scientific challenges in addressing these issues. The report presents both recommendations from science for policy development, and recommendations on policy for science.

The European Union's Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) seeks to achieve, for all European seas 'Good Environmental Status' (GEnS, Borjia et al., 2011) by 2020; on the other hand ecological models are currently one of the strongest approaches used to predicting and understanding the consequences of anthropogenic and climate-driven changes in the natural environment. This presentation will highlight the results of a review conducted under an FP7 project called DEVOTES showing 1. current capabilities of the modelling community to inform on indicators outlined in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), with a special focus on the following three descriptors: biodiversity (D1), food webs (D4), non-indigenous species (D2) and seafloor integrity (D6); 2. which models are able to demonstrate the linkages between indicators and ecosystem structure/function and the impact of pressures on state and thus indicators; 3. gaps in model capability and needs for development. In addition, in order to facilitate the implementation of management policies like the MSFD and explore future plausible scenarios, some preliminary results will be presented on spatial and temporal evolution of the Mediterranean marine ecosystem from 1950 to 2010 and structural and functional changes of the basin using specific model derived indicators.

Marine Scotland Science scientists are working on a project to investigate the potential effects of proposed wind farms on the circulation in the Firth of Forth and Tay area, off the Scottish east coast. The wind farms are projected to be sited in relatively shallow sand bank areas which are important habitats for sandeels, which is term sustain very important populations of seabirds and marine mammals. Significant changes to the circulation patterns may affect the physical characteristics of the sea bed and thus their suitability as sandeel habitats, while other hydrographic changes may affect primary productivity, with ensuing changes to the ecosystem structure and function. Rory O'Hara Murray (r.murray@marlab.ac.uk) has developed a FVCOM model of the area at very high maximum resolution (down to 10 m within the wind farms), representing turbine foundations as islands within the model. Simulations have shown small nearfield effects on current speeds but no noticeable effects further afield. The outputs of the FVCOM model are being used by a University of Aberdeen/Marine Scotland Science joint postdoc (Jacqui Tweddle; jftweddle@abdn.ac.uk) as forcing data for a 1-D primary productivity model to investigate the potential effects of any physical changes on primary productivity and higher trophic levels.

With this talk, we present the general structure being developed at JRC to build a 'modelling framework' of EU regional seas. The components of the framework and the different applications already made to regional basins are presented. Furthermore, an example for the evolution of biogeochemical conditions in the Mediterranean Sea during the last 50 years (1960-2010) is shown. The time evolutions of primary and secondary productions in the entire basin are assessed against available independent data on fisheries yields and catches per unit effort for the same time period. Concordant patterns are found in the time-series of all biological variables (from the model and from fisheries statistics), with low values at the beginning of the series, a later increase with maximum values reached at the end of the 1990's and a posterior stabilization or a small decline. Spectral analysis of the annual biological time-series reveals coincident low-frequency signals in all of them; the first, more energetic signal, peaks at 2000 while the second one (less energetic) presents maximum values at around 1982. Almost identical low-frequency signals are found in the nutrient loads of the main rivers of the basin and in the integrated (0-100 meters) mean nutrient concentrations in the marine ecosystem. Our analysis shows, hence, that the control of marine productivity (from plankton to fish) in the Mediterranean basin seem to be principally mediated through bottom-up processes that could be traced back to the characteristics of riverine discharges.