Development of WISE-Marine for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive

The overall aim of this project is to provide support to the European Commission for the further development of the reporting system for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) through the marine component of the Water Information System for Europe (WISE-Marine). This involved: further development and refinement of the reporting sheets for MFSD Articles 8 (Initial Assessment), 9 (GES) and 10 (Targets & Indicators); consideration of existing data reported under the MSFD; potential synergies with other Directives and regional and international Conventions; and the development of reporting summaries to compare, aggregate, summarise and visualise the information and data that will be held in WISE-Marine.

The project had three main components:

• Initiation of the development of ‘output content’ from the data and information reported by Member States under the MSFD in 2012;

• Review of links between MSFD reporting requirements and reporting under other EU Directives (e.g. Habitats and Birds Directives, Water Framework Directive) and international agreements such as the Regional Sea Conventions (RSCs);

• Refinement of reporting sheets for Articles 8, 9 and 10, and development of reporting sheets for Article 11 (Monitoring requirements).

The project involved close interaction with the European Commission (EC), European Environment Agency (EEA), Member States and the Working Group on Data, Information and Knowledge Exchange (WG DIKE) to ensure that developments are in line with Commission, EEA and Member State requirements.