Laurent GUERIN

NEA PANACEA was proposed by a consortium of 8 beneficiaries from 5 OSPAR Contracting Parties: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. It represents a regionally (OSPAR) coordinated effort to deliver elements for the 2024 MSFD article 8 assessment through OSPAR’s 2023 Quality Status Report (QSR). It aims to (further) develop and deliver 9 OSPAR indicator assessments (3 pelagic habitats, 1 food webs, 4 benthic habitats and 1 marine bird assessment), work to contribute to the establishment of regional threshold values, and efforts to take climate change impacts into account in the assessments. Furthermore, the Action seeks to deliver the integrated assessment of state through the OSPAR QSR thematic assessments of pelagic habitats, benthic habitats and marine birds.

It will progress work within the relevant OSPAR expert groups and will seek to coordinate and facilitate collaboration with the other OSPAR expert groups that deliver the QSR through the organization of joint workshops. By delivering these thematic assessments, NEA PANACEA will contribute to the evaluation of the effectiveness of past measures in the OSPAR area and it also proposes work designed to identify the potential of future measures to manage human activities that impact the seafloor.

Taking into account current developments in the EU Common Implementation Strategy process on the topic of horizontal, or cross-cutting issues, this Action also includes efforts to integrate the assessments of state and pressure, with a special focus on coherence between baseline and threshold setting methods and involving eutrophication and ecosystem modeling experts together with biodiversity and food web experts.

In addition, multiple Tasks have explicit intentions to reach out to other sea regions to exchange information and promote between-region coherence.

Action Name

NEA PANACEA (North East Atlantic project on biodiversity and eutrophication assessment integration and creation of effective measures).

Grant Number

110661/2020/839628/SUB/ENV.C.2

Action Timeline

01 March 2021 - 28 February 2023

Action Budget

€ 1.211.352,50 (€ 969.082 EU contribution)

Contact

Jos Schilder, Rijkswaterstaat (NL), jos.schilder@rws.nl

The EcApRHA project (Applying an Ecosystem Approach to (sub) Regional Habitat Assessment) co-financed by the EU DG Environment was a 15-month (December 2015 – February 2017) project, which focused on addressing gaps in the development of biodiversity (pelagic, benthic and food webs) indicators for the OSPAR Regions. In particular, the project aimed to overcome challenges in the development of indicators relating to the MSFD (Marine Strategy Framework Directive 56/2008/EU), such as Descriptor D1 (Biodiversity), D4 (Food webs) and D6 (Seafloor integrity).

Project name

Applying an Ecosystem Approach to (sub) Regional Habitat Assessments (EcApRHA): Addressing gaps in biodiversity indicator development for the OSPAR Region from data to ecosystem assessment”

Grant number

11.0661/2015/712630/SUB/ENVC.2 OSPAR

Project timeline

01 December 2015 – 28 February 2017

Project budget

940,856 Euros (714,298 EU contribution)

Advisory Board

Mark Dickey-collas (ICES), Dr Kalliopi PAGOU (ActionMed/HCMR) and BalticBOOST representatives

Partners and structure

EcApRHA has been implemented through collaboration of nine partners under the coordination of the OSPAR Secretariat. The partners are: Bioconsult, Biologie des Organismes et Ecosystèmes Aquatiques – Centre national de la recherche scientifique (BOREA-CNRS), the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO), Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (MNHN), Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), and the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS).