Evaluating Marine Plans: Lessons Learned from Aquatic Environmental Assessments

As demands on aquatic resources increase, there is a growing need to monitor and assess the condition of the marine environment.  This requires marine plans to be developed, based on robust assessments of environmental condition.  An important component of effective Marine Spatial Planning is the ability to monitor and assess the performance of the plan against national and regional goals and objectives. 

This talk summarises recent progress in Europe with the identification of ecosystem goals for Regional Seas that will form the basis of the Marine Plans for Member States.  A review is presented of a variety of aquatic environmental assessments at local, national, international and global scales, to identify good practice.  The review found a surprising lack of consistency in the terminology currently used to describe and differentiate different types of assessment.  In particular the terms ‘ecosystem’ and ‘integrated’ are often misused resulting in lack of clarity. Some so-called ecosystem assessments do not in fact incorporate abiotic parameters, and some ‘integrated’ assessments analyse parameters independently, with no attempt to analyse drivers and linkages between them.  Clear definitions of assessment terminology are suggested that consolidate existing proposals and help simplify future applications.  A new classification system is proposed, based on the environmental components considered, the methodologies and nature of the linkages between components, and the inclusion or exclusion of socio-economic factors.  The assessment terminology and categorisation system provided could simplify the way that assessments are defined and used in the future to inform development of management strategies. 

Explicit goals and a clear approach to assessment will be fundamental components of effective Marine Spatial Planning and the talk will provide recommendations for changes in practice.