Marine Vulnerability Assessments
A Vulnerability
Assessment is an assessment of possible impacts on marine
biodiversity from human activities. Different human activities
exert a variety of pressures and these pressures, in turn, have
different levels of impacts on habitats and species. To carry out a
Vulnerability Assessment we must consider where activities occur within
the marine environment and what habitats and species use that
space. Using this information we can find out the overlapping area
of the activity with the different habitats and species in the
marine environment, we call this the ‘exposure’. Then we can
ascertain how sensitive each marine habitat and species is to the
activity in question, through our sensitivity
assessments When we
combine the exposure of the environment, with the sensitivity of
the environment then we have the likelihood of impact, we call this
vulnerability.
This can be used in planning to reduce the
risks to the marine environment; advice can then be tailored to the
needs of Marine
Protected Areas (MPAs), industries or development projects,
including:
- Assessing the status
(condition) of marine habitats for legislative reporting where
in-the-field data has not yet been collected;
- Providing evidence for the
development of MPA conservation objectives (i.e. high level
statements of ecological aims for the MPA);
- Providing advice to industry
on the likely impacts of their activities on marine biodiversity,
particularly within MPAs;
- Jointly with Germany
developing an indicator of physical damage for MSFD purposes under
OSPAR (Oslo-Paris Convention) coordination;
- Assigning a prioritisation to
the monitoring of MPAs following a risk-based approach;