ODEMM Work Package 1 – Knowledge Base
Led by Nadia Papadopoulou
In order to provide a common basis for the development work of the project a review of the existing knowledge base covering the scientific understanding, environmental, social and economic status of the European marine system was conducted. This provided a codification of the ecosystem, including ecological and human ecosystem components.
The objectives of Work Package 1 were to gather regional information on:
- Biological resources and their spatial and temporal dynamics in response to key external drivers (environment), and human pressures on them;
- Economic and social status of the member states bordering the regions. Identify anthropogenic and external drivers of this and how much of this is pan-European, or regional;
- Monitoring initiatives currently in place for aspects of the biological and socio-economic environment.
The following tasks were associated with Work Package 1
- Task 1.1: Identify and assemble meta-data on the ecological, economic and social/cultural environment of the European regional seas.
- Task 1.2: Collating descriptors of each regional sea
- Task 1.3: Identify the key drivers, pressures and impacts on the natural environment, economic and social/cultural environment
- Task 1.4: Complete major outputs for WP1
Outputs
Technical report of the 'Current state of Knowledge on the Sustainability of European Seas'
ODEMM MetaDatabase. This database lists the source material used by ODEMM to date and contains journal articles, grey literature and published reports that describe the natural, socio-cultural and economic environment in Europe’s regional seas. The database is comprised of 2 tables, the first of which is a general reference list of sources, and the second providing reviews of the information contained within each source.
ODEMM Status and Trends Tables. Theses tables contain the information used by ODEMM to evaluate the current status and trends of ecological characteristics described in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The tables represent an extensive literature review encompassing Reports, Journal articles, Books, Factsheets and websites and describe all of the ecological characteristics and many of the indicators and criteria listed in the MSFD Annex tables. Each row in the table gives a detailed breakdown of the information available in key sources and describes : (1) the ecological characteristic, its indicator and criteria, (2) the type of assessment (status/trend),its outcomes and the criteria used to classify status, (3) a description of the spatial and temporal coverage of the status/trend information, and (4) the relevance of the information to each of the 11 MSFD GES Descriptors.