Interim report of the HELCOM CORESET project

7. Use of the indicator in previous assessments
None
8. Link to anthropogenic pressures
Directly impacted by physical disturbance pressures on the seabed.
9. Pressure(s) that the indicator refl ect
Directly impacted by bottom trawling, dredging, extraction of sand and gravel (etc), disposal of dredged
material (etc), shipping in shallow water, installation of wind farms, piers, platforms, bridges, dams,
cables and pipelines, coastal erosion defence structures and replenishment of beaches. Also large salinity
and temperature changes caused by waste water treatment plants and nuclear power plants (and other
industry) disturb the seabed habitats.
10. Spatial considerations
The index is Baltic wide, but can be calculated to smaller areas, e.g. sub-basins. The tool has no spatial
limits, but the limitations arise from the data reliability.
11. Temporal considerations
Human activities being slowly changing in larger spatial scales, the indicator can be updated every three
years.
12. Current monitoring
The data on pressures is compiled from different sources.
13. Proposed or perceived target setting approach with a short justifi cation.
Under the EU Habitats Directive a threshold of 25% is being used to classify a habitat type to ‘Bad conservation
status’. Using this threshold as a basis, a threshold of 15% or less is being proposed for this
indicator.
Policy relevance of the indicator
The HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) and the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) both
require an assessment of the state of the habitats and the intensity and distribution of anthropogenic pressures
impacting them. Particularly, the MSFD calls for an improved understanding and management of
pressures and impacts arising from human activities and ultimately aims at reducing them. This should lead
to improved state of the ecosystem and hence enhanced resilience of marine ecosystems to counteract
natural and human induced changes whilst ensuring the sustainable use of ecosystem goods and services.
The MSFD requires Member States to put in place measures to achieve or maintain ‘Good Environmental
Status’ (GES) in the marine environment by 2020 at the latest. To reach this overall goal Member States must
develop and implement marine strategies. The marine strategies must include an assessment of pressures and
impacts and develop environmental targets and associated indicators. These environmental targets and associated
indicators should help to guide the progress towards achieving and maintaining GES.
The BSAP ecological objectives, relevant for benthic habitats, state that the distribution and extent of
marine landscapes must be “natural” and species communities must be “thriving” and “balanced”.
Although the BSAP does not mention habitats or biotopes separately, the landscape and community-level
objectives together set the standard for GES of marine habitats.
In the MSFD, the GES of the benthic habitats is particularly assessed with the qualitative descriptor 6 “Seafl
oor integrity is at a level that ensures that the structure and functions of the ecosystems are safeguarded
and benthic ecosystems, in particular, are not adversely affected”. The objective of the descriptor is that
human pressures on the seabed do not hinder the ecosystem components to retain their natural diversity,
productivity and dynamic ecological processes, having regard to ecosystem resilience.
The descriptor and particularly its criterion 6.1 require an assessment of the extent of signifi cant impacts
on benthic habitats.
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