Marine Reporting Units (MRUs) - Formats June 8, 2017 4th meeting of the Technical Group on Marine Data, Copenhagen Authors: Irene del Barrio & Jose Rubio (EEA) Marine Reporting Units (MRUs) - Formats

Marine Reporting Units – Introduction Within the reporting of each article, all elements must be linked to a specific MRU, linking reported information to a specific geographic area Under 2012 reporting, MS provided a set of geographic areas (GIS files) using very heterogeneous approaches. This led to substantive differences in GES assessments between MS, making it difficult to compare For 2018 reporting need to review and where necessary update the geographic areas taking into account: The assessment scales to be used according to the revised GES Decision. The boundaries of Marine Regions and Subregions as agreed by MSFD Committee (November 2016)

Marine Reporting Units – Layers Before 2018 reporting, five layers will be developed by the EEA/ETC-ICM, corresponding to the following levels: a) MSFD Regions (Baltic Sea, North-east Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea) b) MSFD Subregions (of the North-East Atlantic and Mediterranen Sea) c) Subdivisions, where available (eg. from HELCOM (HELCOM sub-basins), OSPAR (OSPAR reporting units level 2) and Member States' subdivisions whenever they have been reported, within each region or subregion d) National part of a region, subregion or subdivision * e) Further division into **: Coastal waters per RBD, as reported under WFD Territorial waters (excl. coastal waters) per RBD, as reported under WFD Beyond territorial waters * Note that including national part will inherit topological problems (mainly overlaps and gaps), that have been identified by analysing Member States’ jurisdictional waters submitted in 2012 ** The RBDs are not naturally aligned with the MSFD regions/subregions/subdivisions. This can be overcome by splitting WFD RBDs in cases where they are located in more than one MSFD region/subregion/subdivision, as has been done with the OSPAR reporting units. There will possibly be alignment issues remaining inherited from WFD reporting (overlaps, gaps and various coastlines being used)

Marine Reporting Units – 2018 Reporting All schemas in the 2018 reporting guidelines include a required field for the respective MRU code The MRUs will be coded and a vocabulary created in the EIONET website, to be included in the reporting system MS will have just to select the MRU code for each part of the reporting. While it will take some time to have all five layers completed, a working list of MRU codes will be provided in advance of 2018 reporting In the meantime, MS will still be able to use or update their existing national reporting areas This to be done by updating the schema 4geo.xml and providing associated GIS files prior to the reporting (if possible, by Sep 17)

Marine Reporting Units – INSPIRE alignment 2018 reporting guidance provides for the availability of MRUs according to the INSPIRE Implementing Rules. This would involve the generation of INSPIRE-compliant: Metadata for each of the five layers according to the INSPIRE Metadata IR (+Technical Guidelines) Web services (View and Download) according to the Network Services IR (+Technical Guidelines), and corresponding metadata Interoperable datasets according to the Interoperability of Spatial Datasets and Services IR (+Data Specifications) INSPIRE metadata files would be created and published through the EEA catalogue web service (OGC CSW) The metadata would include specific keywords to ensure the datasets can be ultimately identified in INSPIRE geoportal as reporting relevant. MRU files would be made available through the EEA/EIONET website (and the EEA catalogue) The implementation of INSPIRE web services (view –WMS- and download –WFS-) would need to be discussed and agreed internally at the agency

Marine Reporting Units – INSPIRE alignment Data Interoperability – First analysis of the Area Management / Restriction / Regulations Zones and Reporting Units (AM) theme “A Reporting Unit is a spatial object that provides the spatial reference for any non-spatial data exchanged under environmental reporting obligations” There is no specific Reporting Unit app schema in INSPIRE. Spatial objects acting as Reporting Units shall be defined and made available according to the requirements of the respective theme Where environmental reporting data refers to real-world (spatial) entities, the reporting data should include an explicit reference to those spatial datasets. The AM DS recommend to use the ManagementRestrictionOrRegulationZone FeatureType when a marine region is established for the purpose of management or as a restriction or regulation zones. Geometry needs to be aligned with Sea Regions spatial objects if it is derived from them (at least at the land-sea boundaries) It is recommended to use inspireId to link reporting data to the spatial object

Use Cases* Area Management, Restriction and Regulation Zones Find all zones/restrictions of a certain type with a certain identifier or name established under a certain legal obligation Find all zones/restrictions in this geographic area Reporting units Provide spatial reference for reporting data “put reporting data on a map” enable spatial analyses * From Michael Lutz’s presentation on INSPIRE – Introduction

AM Core Application Schema* Generic core model Zone properties: Geometry Designation period Competent authority Related zone Zone Type codelist airQualityManagementZone noiseRestrictionZone animalHealthRestrictionZone prospectingAndMiningPermitArea regulatedFairwayAtSeaOrLargeInlandWater restrictedZonesAroundContaminatedSites areaForDumpingOfWaste coastalZoneManagementArea drinkingWaterProtectionArea nitrateVulnerableZone marineRegion riverBasinDistrict bathingWaters floodUnitOfManagement waterBodyForWFD sensitiveArea designatedWaters plantHealthProtectionZone forestManagementArea Legislation & document citation Environmental Domain codelist soil noise naturalResources climateChange healthProtection air water waste natureAndBiodiversity sustainableDevelopment landUse * From Michael Lutz’s presentation on INSPIRE – Introduction

Marine Reporting Units – INSPIRE alignment AM Data Model - ManagementRestrictionOrRegulationZone FeatureType Attributes / Association roles* Comments inspireId Unique, external identifier for each MRU, if possible based on an existing thematic identifier thematicId The MRUs can be assigned several additional thematic identifiers (together with the corresponding schemas) geometry Any geometry representation is allowed (polygons typically GM_Surface, GM_Multisurface –not GM_Curve) environmentalDomain “Water” as defined in the codelist included in AM Theme zoneType “MarineRegion” as defined in the codelist in AM Theme specialisedZoneType An additional codelist to distinguish each level designationPeriod Time period when the MRU was legally designated competentAuthority Organisation responsible for managing, restricting or regulating measures or activities within the zone legalBasis Legal instrument requiring the establishment of the MRU relatedZone Modelling any association with another MRU * Only a subset of attributes and associations are described here

Marine Reporting Units – INSPIRE alignment There is a need to ensure that the layers are in a format and contain the information Member States would need/like to see: Is there any use of these layers expected beyond reporting? The AM theme is very broad and the model is very generic A first quick content mapping has been done for the MR and MSR layers and it looks quite feasible – what are the attributes we want to see in the layers? The default encoding format in INSPIRE is GML – what about other formats (i.e. SHP)? It might be appropriate to use inspireId as the code to link the MRUs with the reporting data This is especially relevant to ensure the identification of the version of the MRU the reporting refers to in case geometry changes over time The inspireId can be built on top of a thematic identifier Opinions/suggestions?

Marine Reporting Units –timeline Next steps* Phase Due-date MS marine waters and subdivisions updates submitted to CDR Aug-17 Draft MRUs layers Sep-17 Validation of MRUs layers Nov-17 Codelists and vocabularies Final MRUs layers Jan-18 * As presented during the Joint Meeting of WG DIKE, GES and POMESA (27 April 2017)