Approach to Reporting for the MSFD

/ EUROPEAN COMMISSION
DIRECTORATE-GENERAL - ENVIRONMENT
Directorate D – Water, Marine Environment and Chemicals
Unit D2 – Marine Environment and Water Industries /
Marine Strategy Framework Directive
Working Group on Data, Information and Knowledge Exchange (WG DIKE) / DIKE 2011/2/4
Brussels
05-06 September 2011
Document: / Approach to reporting for the MSFD (DRAFT)
Document no.: / DIKE 2011/2/4
Agenda item: / 4
Date prepared: / 1/09/2011
Prepared by: / DG ENV
Background / This paper provides a draft outline of the overall approach to reporting under the MSFD, with a focus on requirements for 2012 reporting. It explains the underlying rationale for the reporting framework and to the initial proposals for reporting sheets (as presented in DIKE-2011/2/5), including the initial considerations on how the Commission will use the reported information to meet its obligations under Article 12. The paper should be read in conjunction with the report of the pilot study on reporting sheets (DIKE-2011/2/3).

WG DIKE is invited to:

1. Review the rationale for MSFD reporting and the proposed framework and comment as appropriate.
2. Consider the role of this paper in the reporting process, and further steps to its updating.

Approach to reporting for the
Marine Strategy Framework Directive

DRAFT

Contents

1Introduction

2What reporting is required?

3Reporting formats and transmission

4Reporting as part of a management cycle

5Main uses of the reported information and data

6Approach to 2012 reporting

6.1Addressing 2012 needs within a long-term framework

6.2Scales and quality elements for the assessment

6.2.1Quality elements

6.2.2Specific quality elements/topics for the Initial Assessment

6.2.3Assessment scales

7Reporting for Article 8 – Initial Assessment

7.1Linking activities, pressures, impacts and state

7.2A framework for the Article 8 reporting sheets

7.3Level of detail in reporting and its use by the Commission

7.3.1Expectations for 2012 reporting

7.4Reporting on pressures and impacts

7.5Reporting on ecosystem characteristics and current status

7.6Reporting on economic and social analysis and uses

8Reporting for Articles 9 and 10 – GES and targets

8.1Characteristics of GES (Art. 9)

8.2Environmental targets and associated indicators (Art. 10)

Annex 1Lists of predominant habitat types, functional groups and human activities and uses...... 18

1Introduction

This paper aims to set out the overall approach and framework to reporting by Member States under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). It primarily focuses on the specific reporting under the Marine Directive, as the general mechanisms for reporting under MSFD within the context of SEIS[1], WISE[2]and ReportNet[3] are addressed in DIKE-2011/1/3. Additionally, its focus is on reporting requirements due in 2012.

The concepts and framework for reporting under the Marine Directive have been developed on the basis of the requirements set out in the Directive, and after consideration of the supporting material provided in the Commission Decision on criteria for good environmental status (GES) (2010) and the Commission Staff Working Paper (2011[4]) on the relationship between the initial assessment and the criteria. Initial ideas for reporting were presented to the meeting of WG GES[5] (March 2011), the MSCG[6]workshop on the Initial Assessment (May 2011) and the meeting of WG DIKE (May 2011). The concepts were further elaborated in order to develop a set of draft reporting sheets for pilot testing by a number of Member States during July and August 2011.

This paper provides an introduction and overview to the proposals for reporting sheets provided in DIKE-2011/2/5 and is supported by the report of the pilot testing of draft report sheets (DIKE-2011/2/3). Whilst this paper sets out the Commission's perspective on reporting which, in particular, is needed to facilitate the Commission's responsibilities under Articles 12 and 16 of the Directive, it will benefit from input and understanding from Member States to ensure reporting is developed in a mutually beneficial manner.

The reporting process can be expected to develop over time, both to address elements of the Directive due in later years (e.g. monitoring programmes in 2014) and to improve reporting in subsequent reporting cycles.

2What reporting is required?

After transposing the Directive into national law and communicating this to the Commission, the main reporting requirements for Member Statescan be considered to centre around reporting on the following articles, which are repeated on a six-year cycle starting in 2012:

1. Article 8 – initial assessment;
2. Article 9 – determination of Good Environmental Status;
3. Article 10 – environmental targets;
4. Article 11 – monitoring programmes;
5. Article 13 – programme of measures.

The reporting requirements from Member States to the Commission specified in the Directive are summarised in Table1.

Table 1: Timetable of the main MSFD reporting requirements from Member States to the Commission (COM) and the EEA (simplified from CSWP 2011)

Date / MSFD Article / Task
2010 15th July / 4.2 / Notification of subdivisions of marine regions or subregions
2010 15th July / 26.1, 26.2, 26.3 / Transposition of MSFD in national legislation and communication to the COM
2011 15th January / 7.1 / Report a list of competent authorities, international bodies and authorities competent for cooperation and coordination
2012 15th July / 4.2 / Revision of subdivisions of marine regions or subregions
19.3 / Provide COM with access and use rights in respect of the data and information resulting from the initial assessments
2012 15th October / 9.2 / Notify COM on the initial assessment and the determination of GES
10.2 / Notify COM of the environmental targets
2013 15th January / 19.3 / Make information and data from the I.A. available to the EEA
2013 latest / 13.6 / Make publicly available, in respect of each marine region or subregion, relevant information with regard to spatial protection areas contributing to coherent and representative networks of marine protected areas
2014 15th July / 19.3 / Provide COM with access and use rights in respect of the data and information resulting from the monitoring programmes
2014 15th October / 11.3 / Notify COM of the monitoring programmes
2015 15th January / 19.3 / Make the data and information resulting from the monitoring programmes available to the EEA
2015 latest / 15 / Inform COM of issues which have an impact on the environmental status of its marine waters and which cannot be tackled at national level, or which is linked to another EU policy or international agreement
Make recommendations to COM and the Council for measures where actions by EU institutions is needed
2016 March latest / 13.9 / Notify COM and other MS concerned of the programme of measures
14.1, 14.4 / Substantiate to COM instances where, for reasons in Art 14.1(a-d), the environmental target or GES cannot be achieved or, for reasons in Art. 14.1(e), they cannot be achieved within the time schedule.
Provide COM with justification for decisions to not take specific steps to develop and implement marine strategies.
2018 15th October / 17.3 / Notify COM, Regional Sea Conventions and other MS concerned of updates on the review of marine strategies: the initial assessment, the determination of GES and the environmental targets
2018 / 18 / Submit to COM a brief interim report on progress in the implementation of the programme of measures
2020 15th October / 17.3 / Notify COM, Regional Sea Conventions and other MS concerned of updates on the review of marine strategies: monitoring programme
2022 March / 17.3 / Notify COM, Regional Sea Conventions and other MS concerned of updates on the review of marine strategies: programme of measures

The Commission has to assess whether, in the case of each MemberState, the elements notified under Articles 9, 10 and 11 constitute an appropriate framework to meet the requirements of the Directive (Art. 12). In doing this, the Commission shall consider the coherence of frameworks with the different marine regions or subregions and across the Community. This assessment needs to be undertaken within six months of receiving all the notifications from Member States. The Commission must undertake a similar assessment in relation to reporting on programmes of measures under Article 13 (Art. 16).

The framework for reporting outlined in this paper is consequently set out and guided by the Directive's requirements for the Commission to assess the reporting by Member States.

3Reporting formats and transmission

The Directive provides little specific guidance on reporting formats to be adopted. Article 19(3) indicates that Member States shall provide the Commission with access and use rights in respect of the data and information resulting from the initial assessments and from the monitoring programmes; these data and information need also to be made available to the European Environment Agency (EEA) and need to be compliant with the INSPIRE Directive (2007/2/EC). Article 24(2b) provides for technical formats to be adopted through the Regulatory Committee (Art. 25) for the purposes of transmission and processing of data, including statistical and cartographic data.

On the basis of the range of reporting outlined in Table 1, it can be expected that the nature of information to be reported under the Marine Directive will include a mixture of text reports (e.g. transposition), assessment information (e.g. initial assessments), data and maps (e.g. initial assessments, monitoring data) and metadata (e.g. monitoring programmes).

The Commission, together with theEEAand its member countries and cooperating countries,is developing a Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) to improve the collection, exchange and use of environmental data and information across Europe. SEIS aims to create an integrated web-enabled, EU-wide environmental information system, by simplifying and modernizing existing information systems and processes.For water-related directives, this is manifested in the Water Information System for Europe (WISE) and for biodiversity directives in the Biodiversity Information System for Europe (BISE). Reporting into these systems is handled via the EEA’s ReportNet system which acts as a reporting management service. The content of reports for each Directive is defined in a set of reporting obligations which are translated into ‘reporting sheets’, each giving guidance on the information and data needed and its format.

In keeping with Commission policy, the WISEsystem will form the main platform for technical reporting under the MSFD, with a specific module (WISE-Marine) developed to handle the information and data. This approach is familiar to Member States in their reporting under the related Water Framework Directive and other water directives.

Although as mentioned there is a mechanism in the Marine Directive (Art. 24(2b)) to adopt formal reporting formats, a more informal route for developing reporting requirements via a set of ‘reporting sheets’ is being followed, as is done for related directives (e.g. Water Framework, Habitats and Birds Directives). These reporting sheets are being developed through consultation with Member States via the Working Group on Data, Information and Knowledge Exchange (WG DIKE), with a view to their approval by Marine Directors. This approach offers greater flexibility in reporting, as the sheets can more easily be amended in the light of experience in implementing the Directive, without recourse to legal mechanisms.

The reporting sheets provide the specifications for the content of the reports; once agreed with Member States, they are subsequently converted into a schema and database which enables the information to be captured in standardised formats (e.g. use of specified data formats and term lists) for upload into the ReportNet system.The WISE system,following the SEIS principles, is progressively moving towards a distributed network system, such that reports will be retained at source (i.e. held nationally) and accessed centrally via web services. In the short-term some MSFD reporting (e.g. certain data sets) may also make useof EMODnet[7] which provides a platform for accessing and sharing marine data,following the distributednetwork approach in SEIS. Details on this are currently being explored.

4Reporting as part of a management cycle

The main elements of reporting under the Directive follow an environmental management framework which can be related to the well-established DPSIR approach[8]. The main steps of the framework are defined in Articles 8, 9, 10, 11 and 13 of the Directive, and repeated on a six-year cycle.

These links between the articles, and how the different elements relate to the DPSIR framework and MSFD reporting sheets, are illustrated in Table 2.

Table 2: Outline of the main elements of the MSFD management cycle in the context of the DPSIR framework, indicating the links to and between the relevant Articles and to the associated reporting sheets.Monitoring of progress towards achieving or maintaining GES is via monitoring programmes (Art.11).

DPSIR element / Drivers / Pressures / State / Impacts / GES& targets / Responses
Description / Analysis of uses of marine environment (economic and social) / Analysis of pressures on marine environment from human activities
Assessment of impacts from pressures / Assessment of current state of marine environment (ecosystemstructure and functioning)
Take account of impacts from pressures / Assessment of costs of degradation, based on impacts on environment and to human welfare (ecosystem goods and services) / Define good environmental status (GES)
Assess gap between current state and GES
Define targets to achieve or maintain GES / Development of programme of measures to deliver targets
Links to MSFD Articles / Art. 8(1c) / Art. 8(1b) / Art. 8(1a) / Art. 8(1c) / Art. 9
Art. 10 / Art. 13
Links(to be made explicit in the reporting sheets) / Identify the main pressures from each activity / Link pressures to main activities.
Identify main ecosystem components being impacted / Identify main pressures and impacts – link to main pressures
Link to Reporting sheets / Reported in Economic and social reporting sheets / Reported in Pressures and impacts reporting sheets / Reported in Characteristics reporting sheets / Costs of degradation reported in Economic and social reporting sheets / GES reported in GES reporting sheets
Targets reported in Targets reporting sheets / Programmes of measures reporting to be developed for 2015 reporting

5Main uses of the reported information and data

Given the very broad subject and geographical scope of the Directive, there is potential to collate, analyse and assess considerable volumes of information. Indeed, a full understanding of the structure and functioning of the marine environment, how this is changing over time and space, and how best to manage it to achieve the objectives of the Directive (and other policies) will require significant volumes of information and effective means to process it.

The reporting process aims to capture only a synthesis of this information in order to perform the duties of the Commission and to facilitate regional and European-level assessments; the majority of the information should remain at MemberState level within relevant policy and scientific institutions. The main uses of the reporting process are set out in Table 3.

Table 3: Main uses of the MSFD reporting process

Level / Application
MemberState / To provide an overview of implementation of the Directive, particularly for national policy and management purposes. This may be particularly relevant for larger countries where delivery of the directive is implemented through regional administrations or via a range of government agencies.
Regional organisations (e.g. Regional Sea Conventions) / To provide data and information which contribute to the assessment and management at regional scales, including regional conventions concerning the protection of the environment and its resources.
European Environment Agency / To provide data and information which can be collated and aggregated to periodic assessments of the state of Europe’s marine environment, including a European contribution to global assessments (e.g. UN Regular Process)
European Commission / To enable compliance checking of implementation of the Directive, at national level and in relation to regional delivery requirements.
To provide evidence on the state of the marine environment, on the main pressures affecting it, and on the establishment and implementation of measures and policies for its protection. These will help inform policy, management, and research needs, particularly at European level.
Public / To provide data and information to the general public on the state of Europe’s marine environment and on the implementation of policies for its protection.

For the Commission, the reporting is needed in order to respond effectively to Articles 12 and16. These reports are required within 6 months of delivery of all the relevant information by Member States, thus placing a considerable burden on the Commission to effectively analyse and report across all Member States in a very short timescale. Given that the equivalent Commission reporting under the WFD allows 2 years for the Commission to prepare its report (Art. 18(3)), it is particularly important for the Commission that information provided under the MSFDis in a precise and consistent manner across the Member States.

6Approach to 2012 reporting

6.1Addressing 2012 needs within a long-term framework

Whilst the immediate priority is to develop and agree upon reporting requirements for Articles 8, 9 and 10 which are due to be reported by October 2012, it is considered most important to do this in the light of overall reporting requirements for the Directive. The proposals for 2012 reporting therefore have, in particular, considered:

1. The six-year cycle of reporting, in which the 2012 elements (assessment, determination of GES and targets) will need to be reviewed and updated in 2018;
2. The criteria and indicators provided in the Commission Decision (2010) which are intended to guide the assessment of each GES Descriptor;
3. The linkages between Annex III of the Directive (tables of characteristics, pressures and impacts) and Annex I (descriptors of GES) as set out in the [draft] Commission Staff Working Paper (2011).
4. Linkages to reporting on monitoring programmes (Art. 11) due in 2014 and to programmes of measures (Art. 13) due in 2015/16;

In this context, the 2012 reporting has been approached to allow for flexibility in initial approaches to implementation of the Directive but within a framework which will be extended and refined to accommodate future needs.