Evaluation against the background of

European marine and coastal policy

Gerald Schernewski

Baltic Sea Research Institute Warnemünde, GermanyEUCC – The Coastal Union Germany

The mission

ELOISE is the coordinated European input to the international IGBP core project LOICZ (Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone) and represents the research contribution to the EU initiative on integrated coastal zone management (ICZM).

European Land-Ocean Interaction Studies, Conference in Portoroz, 2004

http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/eloise/eloise-h.html

Does ELOISE serve the EU policy on Land-Ocean Interactions and ICZM?

EU policy

Marine Strategy (2002)

Habitat Directive (Natura 2000) (1992)

Water Framework Directive (2000)

Recommendations on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (2002)

Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament:Towards a strategy to protect and conserve the marine environment (2002)

8. ‘The political commitment to sustainable development should lead to a more integrated approach to policy making and management because each policy sector should consider also the side effects, positive or negative, on other sectors and the marine ecosystem.’

Overall objective‘The Marine Strategy should constitute a contribution to the Community Strategy for Sustainable Development. Therefore it should promote the sustainable use of the seas and conservation of marine ecosystems, including sea beds, estuarine and coastal areas, paying special attention to sites holding a high biodiversity value.’

The Marine Strategy

Chapter 6: The Way Forward

development of a coherent marine policy by moving towards an ecosystem-based approach building on the existing policies;

improving implementation and enforcement of both existing and new legislation in an integrated way;

mechanisms and actions aimed at facilitating the co-ordination of these measures and the co-ordination of the different organisations and other stakeholders;

initiatives to improve knowledge on past trends in and likely future scenarios for the quality status of European seas and the procedures and methodologies to assess this information;

promotion of the use and improvement of the co-ordination between the different funding instruments towards the protection of the marine environment;

application of these strategic elements both regionally and globally.

The Marine Strategy

Chapter 4.2: Programmes on Monitoring…and Research

Reporting and Handling of Data and InformationThere is a need to improve the situation with regard to reporting, handling and management of data and information. This could be usefully realised on a European level and be based upon a common policy on generation of, access to and use of the different types of data and information.

ResearchResearch has generated valuable insights into the state of the marine environment and its ecosystems but much more will be needed. As the results of publicly funded research are often not available nor fully exploited in operational work, there is scope for improving the communication between the research community and those engaged inoperational activity both in establishing the research priorities and in applying results to operational monitoring and assessment in the regions.

The Marine Strategy

Managing NATURA 2000 Sites: The provisions of Article 6

‘For special areas of conservation, Member States shall establish the necessary conservation measures involving, if need be, appropriate management plans specifically designed for the sites or integrated into other development plans…..’

‘Habitats’ Directive 92/43/CEE of 21 May 1992on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora

Research within ELOISE improved the understanding of processes and ecosystems and is a valuable contribution to and basis for the Marine Strategy and Natura 2000

The EU Water Framework Directive

On 23 October 2000, the "Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council established a framework for the Community action in the field of water policy" or short the EU Water Framework Directive

Integrated river basin management for Europe

It is a framework for the protection of inland surface waters (rivers and lakes), transitional waters (mostly estuaries), coastal waters and groundwater.

The key objectives are general protection of the aquatic ecology, specific protection of unique and valuable habitats, protection of drinking water resources, and protection of bathing water. All these objectives must be integrated for each river basin.

EU Water Framework Directive

Management by river basin - the natural geographical and hydrological unit are the basis - instead of administrative or political boundaries.

The plan is a detailed account of how the objectives set for the river basin (ecological status, quantitative status, chemical status and protected area objectives) are to be reached within the timescale required.

The plan will include all the results of the river basin’s characteristics: A review of the impact of human activity on the status of waters in the basin, estimation of the effect of existing legislation and the remaining "gap" to meeting these objectives; and a set of measures designed to fill the gap.

An economic analysis of water use within the river basin must be carried out to enable a rational discussion on the cost-effectiveness of the various possible measures.

All interested parties are fully involved in this discussion, and in the preparation of the river basin management plan as a whole (public participation).

The river basin management plan (draft until 2008)

German river basin districtsEU Water Framework Directive

Source: Umweltbundesamt

Requirements:

The WFD requires spatially integrative research taking the human factor into account

Water Framework Directive:Requirements

Typology for coastal waters in the entire Baltic region.

Development of indicators to evaluate the ecological status of coastal waters.

Information on reference conditions as a basis for the definition of a ‘good ecological status’.

Development of water quality classification systems.

The WFD will be implemented during the next years and requires urgently ecological information especially in coastal (and marine waters) !

The EU ICZM initiative

RECOMMENDATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 30 May 2002 concerning the implementation of Integrated Coastal Zone Management in Europe (2002/413/EC)

Identify the roles of the different administrative actors....... Identify the instruments for implementation...... Develop programmes.... which address both the marine and

the terrestrial areas of the coastal zone together. Identify measures to promote bottom-up initiatives and public

participation Identify sources of durable financing of ICZM initiatives... Include adequate systems for monitoring and disseminating

information.... Appropriate training and education programmes....

“.....the need for a sound scientific basis concerning the coastal zone.“ (Chapter II, Principles)

Chapter IV National strategies

What is needed ?

A lot of basic and applied research was and still is required for the implementation of the EU policy.

Does the research show the needed river basin – coast – sea approach and does it consider the human factor?

Has the research implications for practitioners and e.g. the requested (harmonised) management plans?

Are the results available and fully exploited for operational work?

ELOISE projects clearly provided important scientific contributions and served this purpose well, but:

Are marine and terrestrial areas considered equally?

Is the focus on land - ocean integration?

Results:65 % of the ELOISE-projects are water related29 % have a clear focus on land-ocean interaction

Conclusion:

Integrative land-water projects are the minority and the ELOISE serve the EU demand for integrated land-water approaches only to a certain degree.

Nearly all projects have a natural-scientific focus and do not consider other relevant sciences.

Are practical questions of ICZM tackled?

Are practitioners involved?

Is there a clear management contribution?

Conclusion:

Terms like ‘coastal management’ are often ‘misused’ and just serve as a trailer for the scientific interests. In recent projects practitioners ore more often involved.

Results:

11 % of the ELOISE-projects involve practitioners or management orientated institutes formally.

I found no case where practitioners have a strong position and obviously raised the scientific question of the project.

Are the results available to managers?

Will they influence coastal management?

Conclusion:

The ELOISE network now shows a clear approach to make results available for coastal managers and the public

…and it is easy to find !

Results:

Only 44 % of the ELOISE-projects have an website, but the collected projects can now be found and the results are well prepared on a separate website: This site shall:

1. Enable a reader to find out about ELOISE without having to approach the scientific literature in the first instance.

2. Provide an overview of some of the significant results from ELOISE of interest to a wide population.

3. Provide a gateway to more technical information on ELOISE by guiding the reader to academic research papers.

The Website – easy to find ?

The Website – easy to find ?

The Website – easy to find ?

Summary: ELOISE - A successfull approach with respect to policy?

The knowledge about the ‘thematic networks’ ELOISE seems still to be limited to a scientific audience only.

The ELOISE newsletter addresses only scientists and did not look for a cooperation with dissemination mechanism of other organisations.

The Homepages are not easy to find.

The Homepages (e.g. EU, LOICZ, ELOISE) are still not closely linked.

ELOISE clearly supported European policy by contributing science.

ELOISE as a thematic network suffered right from the beginning from a lack of

Recent activities largely overcome these short-comings, however:

clear thematic focus and clear joint goals, a strong and well funded co-ordination centre (umbrella) and a comprehensive dissemination and cooperation strategy.

Lessons learned for future networks There should be a clear joint idea behind every network Interdiscplinarity still has to be strengthened in science. The development of a strong central information and

dissemination umbrella in the internet and a joint dissemination strategy is necessary from the beginning.

Every project has to provide a permanently available website containing all results and information prepared for management and dissemination purposes.

Public relation work (in national languages) has to start from the beginning to broaden the audience and to increase the knowledge about the network and the results.

A clear strategy for a close co-operation with existing networks and organizations is necessary.

A real involvement of practitioners and the consideration of the ‘human dimension’ in projects would be a benefit. At least dissemination workshops for practitioners (in the broadest sense) should be considered.

Networks should actively address EU-policy and influence it with their results.

What is missing?

trans-disciplinary research focussed on land and water, an awareness for the requirements of practical managers and

authorities, the will to involve practitioners and to pick up their problems

and questions as a background for research, the will to disseminate results and to make them available to

management and public. an awareness of the EU policy its implications and needs.

Statement:

The ELOISE thematic network hardly has impact on EU ICZM policy and management

Summary

EU policy is innovative,

has an spatially integrative perspective,

integrates environmental, social and ecomonic aspects

and aims at participation and an involvement of people

the links between the directives, recommendations and strategies are not well visible.

The practical implementation as well as a harmonisation of all requirements and demands might raise problems.

An necessary integrated management of river basins, coasts and the sea is not well defined.

but