Finding Common Indicators across Borders

 

Experiences and impressions from the experts working on shared core indicators for the Baltic Sea

The level of ambition was set high when the HELCOM CORESET project began to find common ground for core indicators, for assessing the state of the Baltic Sea marine environment. The three-year project has one more year ahead, and almost a hundred Baltic experts participating in the work can already boast on newly developed results, while taking a deep long breath before finalizing the core indicators for the HELCOM web site.

 

HELCOM Newsletter interviewed some experts about their experience of the project.

 

The challenge to start with biodiversity indicators

Ms. Ulla Li Zweifel, Sweden, the chair of the biodiversity expert group of the project, was initially responsible for steering the work of almost 70 experts in the Project. “The role of chairing a project like CORESET is about facilitating and providing a structure for the work of other experts”, she says.

As biodiversity is a wide concept and quite difficult to grasp, this work really required a coherent approach, which Ulla Li skillfully structured. The expert teams working with mammals, birds, fish, benthic communities, plankton and non-indigenous species therefore were all able to develop lists of possible indicators and link them to anthropogenic pressures in the region.

“I think it is important to convince experts that their work will come out in a form that will matter. You have to present the participants with a picture of the real final product and the way it will be used. To keep the work going, a certain level of positive nagging is also necessary, in a friendly but firm tone”, Ulla Li smiles.

As an acknowledged scientist and lecturer in the University of Gothenburg, the coordination of a scientists’ network was not alien for Ulla Li.

“I have worked for many years with environmental assessments, both in UNEP and with previous HELCOM thematic assessments. The Marine Strategic Framework Directive (MSFD) will have a fundamental role in improving the state of the European Seas and when given the opportunity to take part of shaping the regional process for the Baltic Sea - this was a given task take on. This goes both to my personal concern for the environment and to my professional aim to distill scientific knowledge into guides for practical marine management”.

Ulla Li Zweifel is currently working in the Swedish Water and Marine Management Authority and had to leave her role as the chair of the group.

 

Working between science and policy

Mr. Jens Olsson from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences was responsible for coordinating the work of fish experts. He also chairs the HELCOM FISH PRO project which has given a solid scientific basis for the development of the fish core indicators.

Jens thinks that the biggest challenge in the CORESET project was to develop and propose sound indicators within a very pressed time schedule and with limited funding. “In the HELCOM FISH PRO we have for quite some time worked with developing indicators to assess the status of coastal fish communities and the work within this network has been very important for our work within CORESET”, he says.

The work amidst strong political pressure and scientific ambitio

ns is never easy, and this was also the case in CORESET process. Jens regrets that the political and economic realism comes often too early to the process, and that the tight economic situation leads to fewer experts in the working groups. Mr. Olsson is however optimistic that the results will serve well the Baltic Sea countries. He has especially enjoyed the cross-sectoral discussions of the project.

“Hopefully our suggestions will be acknowledged by the national authorities responsible for the monitoring of biodiversity in the Baltic. It has also been really inspiring to discuss the selection of indicators and assessment procedures with scientists from other fields of expertise“, he says.

 

New co-operation in the field of hazardous substances

HELCOM launched the first integrated assessment of hazardous substances in 2010. The experts behind the assessment developed into a new cooperative group which was ready to take the responsibility of the core indicator work in the Baltic. The experts chaired the workshops in turns – a fact that shows the high level of motivation of all group members. In the very first meeting the group had already produced the list of core indicators in an almost finalized form.

Ms. Galina Garnaga from the Lithuanian Environmental Protection Agency has enjoyed the scientific atmosphere of the group.

“My personal aims are to meet new people, experts and scientists, make new contacts and to get new experience in the field of hazardous substances and environmental pollution”, she says and continues that, since in her daily work she works less with science as such, the CORESET meetings have brought a welcome a dip into scientific atmosphere. Galina chaired one of the workshops in Klaipeda, where the targets, i.e. boundaries for good environmental status (GES), for the core indicators were agreed on by the group.

An aftermath of the Klaipeda workshop was uncertainty on the understanding of the meaning of GES boundaries. Can they be used for all measurements, for example concentrations in muscle or liver, or should they be compared against whole fish concentrations?

Ms. Elin Boalt, working at the Department of Contaminant Research at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, has concentrated on this issue and recommended for the group to use whole fish concentrations in the case of metals. “I have spent a lot of my time looking into problems regarding the risks of status assessments reflecting regional differences due to geographical and biological aspects”, she says and knows that the use of indicators will cause still many challenges for experts. She is, however, glad that the CORESET expert group has been willing to face these problems and find common solutions.

“I definitely feel that the work has been very rewarding. I have been able to participate in a network of people with a deep and broad knowledge in the field of hazardous substances. I have received much help and gained knowledge that is personally very valuable to me in my professional life.”

 

Connecting with North Sea and Europe

The CORESET objective is to develop indicators and Good Environmental Status (GES) boundaries for the Baltic Sea, but the project has made efforts to coordinate with the North Sea and follow European standards. In the expert group for hazardous substances, this aim was evident from the beginning because the group chose to use so-called environmental assessment criteria (EAC) of the OSPAR Commission, and environmental quality standards (EQS) of the European EQS directive.

In addition, the group members from Denmark, Germany and Sweden were also active members of similar activities in the North Sea. Mr. Martin M. Larsen from Denmark, a former chair of the OSPAR MIME (a group for monitoring effects of substances in the marine environment) has worked with metal concentrations in both sea areas.

“The most frustrating part is the lack of time to do an even better job at getting it right and ready within the tight deadlines”, Martin says, but continues that the experiences from the colleagues in the group have inspired him in his own work as the head of the Danish hazardous substances monitoring programme.

“The development of normalizers between fish organs and species will be one huge step forward in combining data from all countries and monitoring around HELCOM to one coherent status”, he says.

 

Has CORESET taken ecosystem approach forward in the Baltic?

The work of HELCOM is – ultimately – not about sound environmental assessments but to reach the vision of a healthy Baltic Sea. The CORESET Project has shared this vision and worked towards strengthening the common view what a healthy Baltic Sea could look like. The targets set for the core indicators indicate a boundary, beyond which one can say that at least a small piece of the environment has reached good environmental status.

“When the core indicators have been approved by the HELCOM Contracting Parties and placed on the HELCOM web site, our aim is to visualize the state of the sea very clearly”, says Mr. Samuli Korpinen, Project Manager of the HELCOM CORESET project. Samuli continues that it has been sometimes difficult to combine solid scientific methods, reliable results and the obligations for Baltic-wide indicators.

“Core indicators are a communication tool, but they must present reliable results”, he says. “We have made good progress with the science base, but often the environment is more complicated than our hopes for communicative indicators“, he thinks.

The Project will deliver a proposal for the set of core indicators in September 2012.

 

Link to the project description: http://www.helcom.fi/projects/on_going/en_GB/coreset/