1. Marine Strategy Framework Directive Descriptor 3 Case studies
Report at

2. Approach taken: Theoretical concepts, criteria, methodologies for:
Selection of commercial species
Stocks with analytical assessments
Species/stocks with info from monitoring programmes
Case Studies:
Bay of Biscay/Iberia
Baltic Sea
North Sea
Celtic Seas
Mediterranean
Synthesis:
Different interpretations of GES
Assessment of current status against GES

3. Baltic Sea
Finland

4. Baltic Sea
ICES (sub-)divisions
HELCOM sub-basins

5. Need for collaboration: Stocks outside international cooperation but distributed across two or more national fishing zones

6. Selection of commercial fish dependent on period chosen

8. Mediterranean Sea
Italy

9. Match GFCM - MSFD Match GFCM – MSFD areas in Italian waters
Western Mediterranean:
GSA 9 (Ligurian and North Tyrrhenian Sea),
GSA 10 (South Tyrrhenian Sea),
GSA 11 (Sardinia);
Ionian Sea and the Central Mediterranean:
GSA 16 (South of Sicily),
GSA 19 (Western Ionian Sea);
Adriatic Sea:
GSA 17 (Northern Adriatic),
GSA 18 (Southern Adriatic Sea).
Match
GFCM – MSFD
areas
in Italian waters

10. Species selection: Central Mediterranean

11. Status assessed stocks in Italian waters

12. % species covered per MSFD sub-region

13. % landings covered per MSFD sub-region

14. Bay of Biscay
Spain

15. Spanish MSFD subdivisions

16. Spanish North-Atlantic subdivision
Match to ICES divisions:
Entire ICES Division VIIIc
part of ICES Divisions VIIIb, VIIId, VIIIe, IXa and IXb.  

17. Species selection criteria
Landings ≥ 1%.
Regularly assessed by ICES: these species are, or have been, commercially important, either because of high catch levels or due to their socio-economic value.
“New ICES species”: species for which ICES gave advice for the first time in 2011 and for which there is a higher chance that assessments may be developed in the not too distant future.
WFD: species that were selected for this area under the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC). This introduces coherence with related European legislation.

18. Assessment of GES
at the stock level

19. Status assessment relative to GES

20. North Sea
Netherlands

21. Species selection: effect threshold

22. Data
Quality:
Species with
analytical
assessments

23. Assessment current status against GES
Criteria 3.1 (F and HR) and 3.2 (SSB and CPUE)
Example: North Sea

24. Quality assurance

25. Celtic Sea
Ireland

26. Celtic Sea and
West of Scotland
ICES ecoregion
MSFD Celtic
Seas subregion

27. Data quality % Species % Landings A: Full analytical assessment
TR: Analytical assessments but qualitative evaluation only
T: Analytical assessment providing F and SSB without reference levels
S: Assessments based on abundance or biomass trends from monitoring programs
N: Stocks/species that are not assessed or with no information
% Species
% Landings

28. GES assessment

29. Time series of
F and SSB averaged
per functional group
in relation to
MSY reference levels

30. Summary/Conclusions
Considerable differences between case studies in terms of data quality (specifically in terms of availability of analytical stock assessments)
Quality of the analytical assessments varied considerably within as well as between case studies
Several methods were developed/applied for non-assessed stocks. These were not evaluated but generally were less strict than for stocks with reference levels
In case of one out - all out aggregation rule, i.e. assessment by worst case, none of the case studies currently achieved GES. Independent of GES interpretation.