Relevant national and international agreements
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OSPAR Convention and UK National Marine Monitoring Programme. This programme started in 1992, but was only officially ratified in 1998. The United Kingdom is one of 16 countries that have signed up(known as contracting parties) to the OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic. The 1998 OSPAR Convention requires that contracting parties shall "take all possible steps to prevent and eliminate pollution and shall take the necessary measures to protect the maritime area against the adverse effects of human activities so as to safeguard health and to conserve marine ecosystems, and, when practicable, restore marine areas which have been adversely affected". |
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The OSPAR Convention does this through an action plan and strategies on:
Implementation of the action plan and strategies is undertaken by five committees and an Assessment and Monitoring Committee (ASMO). The committees are referred to as the OSPAR second tier. A number of third tier bodies deal with the technical issues. The structure of OSPAR can be summasised as follows: |
Management and advice
Second Tier level:
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Strategy Committees
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Third Tier Level Working Groups
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OSPAR contracting parties commit to monitoring environmental quality throughout the North-East Atlantic under the OSPAR Assessment and Monitoring Programme (JAMP) and the Nutrients Monitoring Programme (NMP).
In the United Kingdom monitoring is carried out by the UK National Marine Monitoring Programme (NMMP) and organised by the Marine Pollution Monitoring Management Group(MPMMG)
It does this through the National Marine Monitoring Programme Working Group (NMMP-WG). One of thegoals of MPMMG is to make sure that marine environmental monitoring meets national and international requirements.
The NMMP-WG is made up of representatives from all government organisations with statutory marine protection monitoring obligations.
These include:
- Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and
Fisheries organisations
- Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS)
- Fisheries Research Services (FRS)
- Scottish Executive Rural Affairs Department (SERAD)
- Department of Agriculture and Rural Development for Northern Ireland (DARDNI)
Environmental protection agencies
- Environment Agency (EA)
- Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)
- Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA).
The Joint Nature Conservation Committee is also represented to ensure best co-ordination and minimal overlap with the marine monitoring carried out in the UK by government organisations that are tasked with marine conservation monitoring obligations.
There is also a representative from the Inter Agency Committee on Marine Science and Technology to ensure there is no duplication between groups.
The NMMP-WG has three analytical quality control (AGC) sub-groups to ensure strict quality control of data collection and analysis.
The inlucde:
- National Marine Chemical AQC (NMCAQC)
- National Marine Biology Analytical Quality Control (NMBAAQC)
- National Marine Ecotoxicology Analytical Quality Control (NMEAQC).
In addition, there is a statistical group, which meets on an ad-hoc basis to support the work of the NMMP.
The NMMP meets many of the UK's marine monitoring commitments under these programmes. Quality Status Reports(QSR) have been prepared for publication in 2000 for the whole region of the North-East Atlantic, and also for five sub-regions.
The UK NMMP data has been used extensively for the QSR's.
European Commission (EC) directives
It is recognised that there is a potential for overlap of the monitoring requirements under OSPAR and under EC directives.
As a result, one of the objectives of the NMMP is to co-ordinate, and make best use of, and gain maximum information from, marine monitoring in the United Kingdom to ensure minimal duplication of effort.
Data gathered for the NMMP may also be used to meet some of the monitoring requirements for the EC Dangerous Substances Directive (76/464/EEC), the Shellfish Waters Directive (79/923/EEC), the Shellfish Hygiene Directive (91/492/EEC), the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (91/271/EEC) and the Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC).
It is also likely that NMMP data will be used to fulfil some of the monitoring requirements of the Water Framework Directive.
Plans and Programmes
NMP - Phase 1
In 1987/88, the MPMMG reviewed the monitoring carried out in UK estuaries and coastal waters and concluded that there would be considerable merit in the regular sampling of a network of coastal monitoring stations to meet international monitoring commitments
.A spatial survey(data or information that identifies the geographic location of features and boundaries was started in 1993 at a network of 87 monitoring stations in estuarine, intermediate and offshore locations.
These sites were monitored for:
- Water quality
- Sediment chemistry
- Bioaccummulation diversity parameters(the accumulation of organic chemicals in an organism)
- Other special surveys.
as outlined in the UK National Marine Monitoring Plan (HMIP, 1994) known as the 'Blue Book'. The results of this survey can been seen in Survey of the Quality of UK Coastal Waters, 1998'.
NMMP2 - Phase 2
As the data collected between 1993 and 1995 was primarily a spatial data set, phase 2 was designed to look more closely at temporal trends(trends over a given period of time).
The National Marine Monitoring Programme 2 (NMMP2) looks at stable depositional sediment trends(trends found in sediment at stable sites) at ap[proximately 110 sites.
The look more closely at:
- Sediment chemistry
- Benthic communities (the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water )
- Bioaccummulation ( the accumulation of organic chemicals in an organism)
- Ecological effects methods as laid out in the NMMP monitoring 'the Green Book'.
For further Information
- UK National Marine Monitoring Plan. (HMIP, 1994) 'Blue Book'
- National Marine Monitoring Programme: Survey of the Quality of UK Coastal Waters. (Marine Pollution Monitoring Management Group, 1998) Collates and summarises the results NMP - phase 1. Note: Three regional reports exist for Scotland, Northern Ireland, and CEFAS, whilst some of the England and Wales detail is included in the Environment Agency's State of the Environment Report 'Holistic Report'.
- Northern Ireland Regional Report of the National Monitoring Programme(.PDF 772Kb)
. - The 'Green Book'. This controlled document details the locations, methods, time windows and frequencies for the components of the NMMP2 survey.
Other related links include:
