BSEP116B Biodiversity in the Baltic Sea - Helcom

Category IV, covering supporting features, was
not included in the “One out - All out” principle.
5.2 Compatibility with
approaches of European
Directives
The emerging process of setting quantitative
target values for various biodiversity topics is also
occurring to fulfil the requirements of European
legislation. For EU Member States, this is being
carried out in EC Directives such as the Habitats
Directive (43/92/EEC), the Water Framework
Directive (WFD, 2000/60/EC) and the recent
European Marine Strategy Framework Directive
(MSFD, 2008/56/EC).
The approach used here is based largely on the
EQR approach sensu the WFD, especially regarding
the emphasis on defining reference conditions
and acceptable deviations. However, quantitative
approaches are also found in other relevant
European Directives. As an example, the aim of
the Habitats and Birds Directives is to achieve
and maintain favourable conservation status for
all habitats and species of Community interest
in addition to the overall objective of maintaining
biodiversity. According to available reporting
guidelines (European Commission 2006),
in national reporting on the Habitats Directive,
favourable conservation status should be assessed
in the form of clear, measurable reference values
or Favourable Reference Values. Three types of
such values are to be defined: Favourable Reference
Areas for habitats, Favourable Reference
Populations for species, and finally Favourable
Reference Ranges for both species and habitats.
The Habitats Directive reporting guidelines
acknowledge that, in many cases, delineating
reference values is quite difficult, but in these
cases expert judgement must be used as a starting
point, e.g., by using ‘greater than present day
value’.
The recently adopted EU MSFD also indicates
an approach that includes quantitative targets
and associated indicators. A number of qualitative
descriptors listed in Annex I of the MSFD
will be used to define specific characteristics
and ultimately targets and indicators of Good
Environmental Status in European marine waters
by 2012. According to Annex III of this Directive,
a large proportion of the topics to be taken
into account are clearly biodiversity related, e.g.,
population sizes, community structures and
habitat information. All of these Directives aim
for national assessments/reports to be coherent
on a bioregional scale, e.g., the Baltic Sea marine
region in the MSFD. This highlights the importance
of regional processes such as the HELCOM
assessment work.
5.3 Results
Seventeen of the 22 national case study areas are
classified overall as having a ‘moderate’, ‘poor’,
or ‘bad’ biodiversity status, meaning that these
areas are in an unfavourable condition in terms of
the indicators reported (Table 5.3, Figure 5.1). The
exceptions are sites 1 (High), 2 (Good), 3 (High), 4
(Good) and 11 (Good) in the northern Baltic, but it
should be noted that these five sites are limited in
terms of the topics covered.
Overall, the indicator selection available in the
case studies is, not surprisingly, dominated by a
few topics recently developed for WFD purposes,
e.g., zoobenthos community indices and mac-
Table 5.2. Grouping of indicators associated with each category.
Categories (Ecological Objectives on
biodiversity and supporting features)
Category I: Marine Landscapes
Category II: Communities
Category III: Species
Category IV: Supporting features
Indicator topics included within category
Area-based habitat indicators (all types) and large geographic
features
Community indicators on structure and function of phytoplankton,
zooplankton, zoobenthos, macrophytes, fish community, bird
community, endangered habitats and biotopes
Single-species indicators of high profile species mainly fish, birds
and mammals as well as indicators on endangered and alien species
Indicators of environmental parameters including e.g., water
clarity, water temperature, oxygen concentrations, nutrients
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