Ecosystem monitoring
The availability of reliable monitoring data, or the development of a new system is imperative to build reliable baseline information for many activities. In the TWAP methodologies (see ref.60 & ref.61) for the assessment of LMEs and Open Oceans (Vols. 5 and 6) there is clear guidance how these ecosystems should be monitored with respect to expected impacts of climate change and variability. Anthropogenic climate change is identified as one of the priority cross-cutting issues for both water systems. Both methodologies propose sustainable monitoring systems for climate variability and change. It is important for IW Marine Projects to consider the sustainability of such systems (collection of samples, analyses, data processing and interpretation, etc.) to ensure that countries and regions have the means to detect long-term changes and provide reliable information for management actions and stakeholder communications.
Monitoring is an expensive process and ensuring that the objective of the monitoring is well specified will help to minimize these costs for both the project and subsequently for national sustainability. A basic monitoring programme should consider collecting information on targeted parameters (e.g. ocean temperature, global mean sea level, ocean acidification) to detect and/or assess the overall ecological condition of the marine ecosystem.
Indicators should be simple (easy to understand and to measure), reliable (conceptually and methodologically well founded) and affordable. Physical indicators of potential climate change consist of ocean forcing functions (atmospheric and hydrological) as well as sea-ice and oceanographic properties, whilst biological indicators consist of five groups of indicators related to organisms (behavioural aspects, state of the body, and phenology of biological events), to populations (recruitment, mortality, numbers and geographical distribution) and to community structure (biodiversity, structure and functioning). These represent a minimum suite of indicators needed to address climate change issues and determine possible causes of (marine) ecosystem changes. (Ref.Doc.3)
| Large Marine Ecosystems |
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The methodology for assessment of Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) was developed under the Global Environment Facility (GEF) medium size project (MSP) ‘Development of the Methodology and Arrangements for the GEF Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme (TWAP)’. LMEs, 64 of which have been defined globally, are natural regions of coastal ocean space encompassing waters from river basins and estuaries to the seaward boundaries of continental shelves and seaward margins of coastal currents and water masses. They are relatively large regions of 200 000 km2 or more, the natural boundaries of which are based on four ecological criteria: bathymetry, hydrography, productivity, and trophically related populations. The documents provide methodological guidelines to execute the LMEs assessment. The approach to the assessment and management of LMEs is based on five modules, with corresponding suites of indicators: Productivity, Fish and Fisheries, Pollution and Ecosystem Health, Socio-economics, and Governance. A central theme of TWAP is the vulnerability of ecosystems and human communities to natural and anthropogenic stressors, and impairment of ecosystem services. A conceptual framework was developed that explicitly shows the links between human vulnerability and natural and anthropogenic stressors, ecosystem services and consequences for humans (with governance as an overarching concept), so that cause and effect can be better identified. This framework also accommodates other ecosystem services in addition to fish and fisheries. Further, it incorporates the five LME modules and integrates ecological, socio-economic, and governance indicators into a unified LME assessment framework. Special reference is given to natural drivers such as climate variability and the global threat of climate change. UNEP: Methodology for the GEF Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme. Volume 5. Methodology for the Assessment of Large Marine Ecosystems (Ref. Doc. 60) |
| Open Oceans |
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A sister volume to Reference 60. For the purposes of TWAP, the open ocean is defined as the ocean areas beyond the defined LME areas. The proposed TWAP open ocean assessment will address these challenges through a globally-scoped assessment that directly addresses four broad themes: climate, ocean ecosystems, fisheries, and pollution. Rather than carving the open ocean into assessment units based on natural system criteria (which can vary depending on the scientific discipline consulted, and whether the surface, mid, or deep ocean is being considered), the assessment will take the cue from the human system side and the global governance arrangements already in place and focus on a global thematic assessment. Special section is related to climate change and variability. The assessment issues covered in this section are linked to human emissions of greenhouse gases, which create a natural system stress by changing the physical and chemical environment of the open oceans. The physical changes having direct consequence for human population are sea-level rise, increased ocean heat content, changes in global patterns of rainfall and drought, impacts on corals, primary productivity and distribution and transport of oxygen. Chemical change discussed is ocean acidification. The report describes a number of indicators related to climate change. IOC-UNESCO: Methodology for the GEF Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme. Volume 6. Methodology for the Assessment of the Open Ocean (Ref. Doc. 61) |
