BSEP116B Biodiversity in the Baltic Sea - Helcom

and hazardous substances) or resource extraction
(fisheries and hunting). This must be done separately
for each subtopic or even each species (see Chapters
2, 3 & 4).
5.5 Recommendations
The majority of biodiversity issues require assessments
on a regional scale owing to the population
dynamics or ecology of the species, communities
and habitats in question. This requires
further development of Baltic marine biodiversity
indicators and target levels beyond what is currently
available.
The implementation and use of indicators require a
flow of information and data from continued and
expanded marine monitoring programmes to cover
all central components of Baltic marine biodiversity.
Monitoring could be combined with activities such
as habitat modelling (see, e.g., Chapter 3.2) to
provide a knowledge base for indicator-based biodiversity
assessments. Some improvement can likely
be achieved with enhanced coordination of the
present monitoring activities, as information on,
e.g., fish populations and habitat status is available
but not from the same sites. Baltic Sea Protected
Areas could possibly serve as pilot areas for a more
integrated and coordinated monitoring and assessment
approach based on indicators.
Box 5.1. Defining conservation status using indicators
The approach used in this assessment is based on
Ecological Quality Ratios (EQR) where EQR is the ratio
(0 to 1) between the present status and the reference
condition (RefCon)i.e., RefCon/Present if degradation
increases indicator value, otherwise the inverse.
Calculation of the status is possible if a reference condition,
acceptable deviation (AcDev), and present status
of a given indicator are available.
For indicators that have a numerically positive response
to a given pressure factor, for example, the share of
opportunist species, the border between Good and
Moderate, i.e. between Favourable and Unfavourable,
conservation status is calculated as:
Equation 1: If Present status ≤ RefCon x (1+AcDev in
decimal form), i.e. if EQR > 1/(1+AcDev in decimal
form), then favourable status is fulfilled for the indicator
in question.
For indicators that have a numerically negative response
to degradation (e.g., population sizes of endangered
species or distribution/area of endangered habitats),
the status is calculated as:
Equation 2: If Present status ≥ RefCon x (1 – AcDev in
decimal form), i.e. if EQR> (1 − AcDev in decimal form),
then favourable status is fulfilled.
Sea trout (Salmo trutta) jumping, Gotland, Sweden
Assessment to classes other than by using the goodmoderate
boundary shown above (i.e., to High, Good,
Moderate, Poor and Bad) is derived as follows: in terms
of EQR, the lower boundary of reference condition is
set to 0.95. The boundary between Good and High is
midway between the Good/Moderate boundary and
0.95. The same class width is used to define Moderate/
Poor, while the Poor/Bad boundary is same distance as
that from the Good/Moderate boundary to 0.95.
The categories in the BEAT matrix (e.g. Communities,
Species) are assessed following the same method;
the EQR and the acceptable deviation used are simply
weighted averages (weight can be neutral) of the indicator
EQRs and AcDevs.
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