DIKE_9-2014-05

Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD)
Common Implementation Strategy
9th meeting of the
Working Group on Data, Information and Knowledge Exchange (WG DIKE)
0930-1800: 26 February 2014
Conference Centre Albert Borschette, Room 1C, Rue Froissart 36, 1040 Brussels, Brussels
Agenda item: / 6
Document: / DIKE_9-2014-05
Title: / Integration and streamlining of marine reporting and data
Prepared by: / DG Environment
Date prepared: / 14/02/2014
Background: / In June 2012 Nature, Marine and Water Directors gave direction to future joint work, including on the following topics:
  • cooperation on an integrated approach in the implementation of the EU legislation on nature and water, including coherent interpretation of definitions,
  • streamlining and harmonisation of reporting and monitoring under the directives in order to avoid duplication.
This document builds upon the paper presented to MSCG in November 2013 (MSCG 11-2013/16) which outlined progress against these objectives. It focuses on aspects relating to reporting and data flows, providing an overview of activities which can lead to improved integration and streamlining of current information and reporting processes.
A preparatory phase has been to review the reporting requirements of a number of relevant EU Directives and international conventions in relation to specific MSFD-relevant topics. These reviews were undertaken under contract by MRAG/UNEP-WCMC/URS and are provided as separate documents as follows:
  1. DIKE_9-2014-05a – Eutrophication
  2. DIKE_9-2014-05b – Hazardous substances
  3. DIKE_9-2014-05c – Fish
  4. DIKE_9-2014-05d – Habitats
  5. DIKE_9-2014-05e – Non-indigenous species

WG DIKE is invited to:

  1. comment on the overall scope and direction, as outlined in the main document;
  2. comment of the topic assessments (5a-5e), particularly regarding the conclusions proposed.

Towards integration and streamlining of marine environmental information

1 EU Marine, Water and Nature Director’s mandate

The following are extracts from the final syntheses of EU Marine, Water and Nature Directors’ meetings:

Copenhagen, June 2012: The Water and Marine Directors confirmed that the areas agreed by the Nature Directors (Copenhagen, May 2012) should be the initial focus of further work, namely:

  • the establishment and management of marine protected areas,
  • cooperation on an integrated approach in the implementation of the EU legislation on nature and water, including coherent interpretation of definitions,
  • joint efforts on EU fisheries issues, including the elaboration of common methodologies on e.g. assessing the impact of fisheries, involving relevant experts and national bodies responsible for fisheries,
  • streamlining and harmonisation of reporting and monitoring under the directives in order to avoid duplication.

In addition, the Water and Marine Directors acknowledged that closer cooperation on activities related to ecosystem services and ecosystem-based approach would be useful.

Vilnius, December 2013: Invited the Commission, in close collaboration with the Member States and the EEA, to continue work on the streamlining of data management between BISE and WISE[1] (including marine) based on the results of the on-going project[2] and to make recommendations as to how existing procedures and timetables could be streamlined and made more cost effective within the existing legal framework. This should be done in clear recognition of the difference between binding reporting obligation and sharing informally other information and data to increase our common knowledge base.

This paper addresses the topic of integration and streamlining of information and data reported under EU directives/policies and to international conventions. It is one aspect which can contribute to a wider more integrated delivery of marine policies.

2 The need for integration

The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, 2008/56/EC) is a framework directive which addresses the entire EU marine environment[3], representing an area about 150% of the extent of EU Member States’ terrestrial territory. The Directive places a range of requirements on Member States, through the preparation of marine strategies, to assess the state of the marine environment, its pressures, environmental impacts and uses, and to establish monitoring programmes, environmental targets and measures in order to achieve good environmental status (GES).

In view of this broad scope, MSFD Article 1(4) states “This Directive shall contribute to coherence between, and aim to ensure the integration of environmental concerns into, the different policies, agreements and legislative measures which have an impact on the marine environment.” The directive explicitly mentions the following Community legislation:

  1. Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC
  2. Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC
  3. Birds Directive 2009/147/EC
  4. Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive 91/271/EEC
  5. Bathing Water Directive 2006/7/EC
  6. Environmental Information Directive 2003/4/EC
  7. INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC

It refers also to the need to encompass International and regional agreements (e.g. regarding protected species and habitats, and marine protected areas) and, due to the topics addressed by the Directive, needs to engage in further policies, such as the Common Fisheries Policy, the Common Agriculture Policy and the EU Biodiversity Strategy, in order to achieve its goals effectively.

Figure 1: Illustration of the WFD and MSFD’s framework nature through association with various other policies and international conventions (selected policies only shown: UWWTD-Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive; BWD-Bathing Water Directive; Habitats-Habitats Directive; Birds-Birds Directive; CFP-Common Fisheries Policy; EQSD-Environmental Quality Standards Directive; Nitrates- Nitrates Directive).

And lastly, the directive requires Member States to cooperate within and across Europe’s regional seas, including via the Regional Sea Conventions[4] (RSC), in order to achieve the objectives of the directive in a consistent and coordinated manner.

Figure 1 illustrates this policy integration 'need' including the framework nature of MSFD and WFD.

A key aspect of environmental policies is to assess the anthropogenic pressures which are exerted upon the environment and the consequent state of the environment, including any impacts from these pressures. These two broad themes (pressures, state) are well represented components across a number of policies and lead to potential areas of overlap in, for example, monitoring, assessment, measures and reporting. Figure 2 shows a high-level mapping of key policies to illustrate where they may have such relationships.

Figure 2: High-level framework for information on state and pressures, with a coarse mapping of key policies to the different state and pressure topics. See Figure 1 for names of policies shown; additionally EIA=Environmental Impact Assessment Directive; SEA=Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive).

3 Benefits of integration

Besides the requirements for integration and cooperation as stated in the MSFD, it is helpful to highlight the range of benefits which can arise from such activities:

  1. Ensure the policies complement each other, delivering enhanced outcomes and avoiding conflict and duplication;
  2. Lead to more efficient implementation processes within Member States, e.g. where monitoring and assessments can serve multiple purposes through the ‘do once, use many times’ principle;
  3. Reduce burden on implementation through more effective and streamlined information management and reporting;
  4. Lead to more effective protection of the marine environment, achievement of each policy’s goals, and consequent socio-economic benefits.

Streamlining and harmonisation of reporting is about integration of information across policies; it represents a 'bottom-up' approach in that it aims to bring data and information together to support its integrated use. A second related topic is convergence of policy objectives/standards (see Annex 1 of MSCG_11-2013-16) which can be considered more of a 'top-down' approach.

4 Need for integration of information/reporting systems

EU Member States (and as Contracting Parties to the RSC) have both an increased demand for reporting of data and information and increased potential for this to have similarities between reporting obligations at regional and EU levels. They frequently indicate that they are keen to minimise the 'administrative burden' of reporting and ensure there is no duplication of effort between different policy obligations, and that the Commission is making effective use of all the information reported.

The reported data and information are needed at both regional and European scales (by the RSCs and the European Commission/European Environment Agency respectively), as well as at national and local levels and by stakeholders.

The information is primarily needed to:

  1. assess the state of the marine environment;
  2. review progress against policy objectives;
  3. check compliance with policy implementation.

Sometimes the same information fits all of these purposes.

The policies relevant to marine environmental protection have been developed over several decades and typically focus on specific aspects (e.g. bathing waters) or specific geographic areas (e.g. WFD, regional conventions). Although each was developed to fill a particular niche and avoid overlaps with related policies, the information and reporting needs which stem from them has not been developed in a fully coherent manner.

The introduction of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (in 2008) brings an opportunity to draw together the various reporting requirements for the marine environment into a more coherent framework. This was initiated in the first major reporting round for MSFD in 2012, in which a conceptual model was developed to accommodate the reporting of the initial assessment of the state of the marine waters (Article 8), the definition of good environmental status (Article 9) and the setting of environmental targets (Article 10)[5]. It incorporated the DPSIR framework[6] and also anticipated subsequent reporting on monitoring programmes (Article 11) and programmes of measures (Article 13). This reporting round also started to make links to reporting under other Directives, either by summarising the available reports (e.g. BWD) or by streamlining the reporting timelines and formats (with the Birds and Habitats Directives).

In order to fully benefit from the reported information across all relevant policies and to ensure its preparation, reporting and access are as efficient as possible, it is necessary to more systematically review current reporting processes. This paper therefore aims to set out a proposed approach and framework for integration of marine environmental policy information. It focuses on European and regional-scale aspects, as 'receivers' of the information from national reporting, with a view to benefiting all levels in the process.

5 Aims of an integration process

5.1 An overall vision

It is important to define the overall scope, aims and principles of an integration/streamlining process at the outset as this will guide the often complex and challenging tasks of bringing data and information systems together.

The overall goal should be on convergence of reporting towards integrated, streamlined and harmonised systems which gives:

BETTER RESULTS WITH LESS EFFORT and which are:

• Effective (informs management and policy and improves environmental quality)

• Efficient (for MS, RSCs and other international organisations, EEA, EC)

• Accessible and informative (to public and stakeholders)

• Helpful (reduces 'administrative burden', allows integration across data sets)

• Integrative (across policies to yield better outcomes)

• Avoid duplication (across Directives, with RSCs and other conventions)

• Up-to-date (e.g. does not wait for a 6-year formal reporting update)

• Lead to consistent and improved assessments of environmental status (for State-of-Environment reports)

5.2 Terminology

It is helpful to define the terms integrated, streamlined and harmonised more clearly to ensure they are used consistently in any forward process;

• Integrated

• Through use of a common data model (based on DPSIR framework)

• Across policies

• Across national, regional and European scales

• Across data/information systems

• Efficient and coordinated processes (streamlined)

• Data/reporting flows work together

• Coordinated timing of assessments

• Efficient reporting mechanisms (report once, use many)

• Automated/semi-automated data flows

• Consistent and comparable data and information (harmonised)

• Consistent assessment outcomes (e.g. on levels of pressures, state of environment)

• Consistent data to support assessments

6 European, regional and national information systems

6.1 WISE-Marine and other European systems

The reported data and information on the marine environment is being brought together at European level as part of WISE (Water Information System for Europe) in a WISE-Marine component. This comprises:

  1. Inputs of data and information from formal reporting and other sources (e.g. EIONET);
  2. Aggregation and use of the data and information (e.g. for State of environment reporting, compliance checking);
  3. Dissemination of the data and information (e.g. via a WISE web-portal).

WISE-Marine provides the marine environment component of European information systems and will need to develop linkages through the Marine Knowledge 2020[7] initiative to:

  1. EMODnet (European Marine Observation and Data Network), holding data on hydrography, geology, physical habitats, biology, chemistry, physics and human activities;
  2. Data Collection Framework for fisheries data under the Common Fisheries Policy;
  3. Copernicus Marine Service with its oceanographic data and models;
  4. Other relevant European and international systems.

6.2 Relationships to regional and national systems

Whilst there is a need to develop WISE-Marine for European-scale use on the basis of the overall goals described above, there is also a need to develop effective interfaces between WISE-Marine and regional and national information systems, as these are the sources of much of the data and information needed. These regional and national systems are likely to follow differing overall structures tailored to their needs, but should be capable of exchanging data and information with an EU system.

Regional Sea Conventions and some Member States have or are developing integrated information systems. In addition there are lines of reporting from Member States to RSCs which are often similar to those needed at EU level. Work is underway to improve the linkages between these systems (see section 8).

7 Process for developing integrated reporting

7.1 Aspects to be considered

Integration, streamlining and harmonisation of reporting concerns three separate aspects, which are related but typically need to be considered separately:

  1. Content (which can cover data, data products, status assessments, targets, measures etc);
  2. Processes (including timing, aggregation from small to large areas, different communities within MS and RSCs dealing with similar topics), and
  3. Technical issues (including IT tools, centralised and decentralised reporting, information flow mechanisms).

7.2 Phases in developing improved integration and streamlining

The following steps are considered necessary to develop more integrated reporting processes and data and information systems. Whilst the focus is on reporting processes between Member States and the Commission/EEA, the increasing role of regional organisations, including the RSCs and ICES, in supporting these EU obligations means that these need also to be encompassed.

Phase I Review existing reporting requirements across EU marine environmental policies and regional/international conventions to understand the scope of each obligation in terms of the information/data needed (content, format), the periodicity of reporting, the geographical coverage of the reports and the reporting mechanisms.

Phase II Define the need for EU-level information and data for state of the environment reporting, effective management of this resource and for compliance checking against policy implementation, through the design of a marine information model, based on the DPSIR framework as this facilitates integration across the information sources and an ecosystem-based approach, and taking account of the information already reported across the relevant policies.

Phase III Assess the scope for streamlining and harmonisation of the reported information, by identifying commonalities in the information/data reported, and where synergies in the timing of reporting could be beneficial. This will lead to the identification of which aspects of the reported information should be streamlined or harmonised, in conjunction with the data/information providers, and agree how this could be achieved (e.g. through harmonisation of data sets including INSPIRE compliance, adjustment of reporting times, improvements in exchange of information, defining governance and processes for reporting).

Phase IV Develop IT solutions to improve the efficiency of information exchange (e.g. dynamic decentralised reporting, automated and semi-automated data exchange mechanisms, improved databases).

8 Progress with delivery

The first phases of the process outlined in section 7.2 have been initiated, supported by two service contracts:

  1. Development of WISE-Marine for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive 2008/56/EC – December 2011- December 2013 – Consultants: MRAG, UNEP-WCMC, URS
  2. Development of a shared data and information system between the EU and the Regional Sea Conventions – December 2013-March 2015 – Consultants: Deltares, AZTI, SYKE, HCMR

Progress is summarised below:

Phase I: a review of the data and information reported by Member States for relevant EU Directives and to the RSCs and other conventions has been undertaken for the following MSFD-relevant topics:

  1. DIKE_9-2014-05a – Eutrophication
  2. DIKE_9-2014-05b – Hazardous substances
  3. DIKE_9-2014-05c – Fish
  4. DIKE_9-2014-05d – Habitats
  5. DIKE_9-2014-05e – Non-indigenous species

These reviews (provided as supplementary reports to this paper) were undertaken using the reporting framework for the MSFD Article 8 Initial Assessment as a basis to structure what was reported. The reviews also identify the timing and periodicity of reporting and the geographic scope.

To build upon these reviews, the EU-RSC contract is examining the data and information holdings within each of the four Regional Sea Conventions, and thus also including information developed by the convention itself (e.g. regional status assessments), with a view to identifying those data and information of most relevance to both regional and MSFD needs (e.g. contributing to common indicator assessments).

Phase II. The development of a framework for marine information management for the MSFD was initiated via the reporting system developed for MSFD Articles 8, 9 and 10, as described in section 4, based on the DPSIR framework. This integrated approach to reporting has been further developed in the reporting requirements for Article 11 on monitoring programmes[8], including provision to make links to reporting on monitoring for other Directives and conventions. The development of reporting for Article 13 on programmes of measures is expected to make strong links to that required under the Water Framework Directive, as both are due in 2015, through identifying common measures to both directives.