Marine Assessments

There are a number of steps in the environmental management cycle that need to be completed to tell us if we are protecting marine biodiversity.  A crucial step in the cycle is the assessment and interpretation of data collected during monitoring programmes.

JNCC has been an active partner in the development of new approaches and tools for the assessment of habitats and species for a variety of national and international status reports.  They include the second cycle of Conservation Status Assessment reports for the Habitats Directive, Charting Progress 2 (CP2) and the OSPAR Quality Status Report (QSR).  Both CP2 and the QSR were published during 2010.  Future work will focus on improving and streamlining assessment methods to meet the challenges of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

Role of monitoring and assessment within an overall environmental management cycle.