Samuel Shephard, Simon P. R. Greenstreet, Gerjan J. Piet, Anna Rindorf &Mark Dickey-Collas

Surveillance indicators and their use in implementation of the MSFD

Twitter @DickeyCollas

Operational indicators (OI) in the MSFD:

- well-understood relationships between state and specified anthropogenic pressure(s)

- defined targets.

This management requirement may mean that OI capture only discrete aspects of the system and miss important large-scale processes.

Operational Indicators

Pic: James Kennedy

Surveillance indicators (SI) could inform a more holistic understanding of state.

SI may monitor key aspects of the system having:

- insufficient evidence to define targets and support state assessment, and/or

- pressure-state (PS) links that are too weak/unclear to underpin specific management advice.

Surveillance Indicators

For example MSFD foodweb GES.

What are the scientific rationale for targets?

Information on state can only be acquired from surveillance indicators.

APSR management frameworks for Operational Indicators can be modified to incorporate Surveillance Indicators:

- Where a given SI remains within defined bounds, the APSR framework operates as usual, but

- departure from bounds triggers a policy reaction (e.g. targeted research).

- Methods for defining SI bounds will depend on available information.

Activity-Pressure-State-Response

SI bounds defined from historical time series – is the indicator entering a previously unobserved state?

Examples of potential surveillance indicators MSFD

MSFD Criterion 1.1 Species distribution

- SI may help interpret variation in OI for population abundance that resulting climate change induced shifts in range

- Ecologically significant changes in distribution could trigger research on spatial management

MSFD Criterion 3.3 Exploited fish stocks healthy age and size distribution

- Suggested OI based on survey data and no reference levels are specified.

- Proviso that “If there is no scientific basis for setting any reference levels the indicator will be considered a secondary indicator”

- SI a way of tracking change

MSFD Criterion 6.2. Structural & functional condition of the benthic community

- SI to reveal changes affecting the harvested components of the foodweb, possibly caused by changing fishing patterns or gears, or

- climate effects on e.g. exchange of nutrients between surface waters and deeper waters that may affect the composition, functioning, and biomass of deep-sea communities.

Criteria for selecting effective SI:

- rationale selecting SI should be as clearly-stated & robust as for selecting OI

- purpose of SI is not to monitor everything, but to play a specific role in the way that OI implement the MSFD

See Characteristic Criterion

Acknowledgments