To ensure that the assessments were robust, and that the evaluation of progress towards the vision is reliable, we adopted the following principles during the assessment process:

• That the assessment criteria were suitable for the job, and were acknowledged by the international marine science community as being fit for purpose.
• That the degree of confidence we have in what the assessments are telling us about status is clear.

Suitability of the assessment criteria

The development of assessment criteria is at different stages for the different components in the report. Some are well developed and have been used with confidence for years, while others are still in development. In several cases we continue to rely on expert judgement.

We still need to produce a more specific and comprehensive set of practical indicators to assess the status of the seas around the UK and this will evolve as knowledge of the ecosystem develops. This process will be guided by the need to deliver assessments of Good Environmental Status under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD).

Confidence in the assessments

We are not able to make an assessment of status for all of the components covered with the same degree of robustness and reliability. We have adopted a framework for assigning ‘confidence’ to each assessment which has been based on that used by the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The framework brings together an evaluation of the amount of data and information available at the right spatial and temporal scale and an assessment of the ‘degree of consensus’ about what the data mean. The latter aspect covers situations where limited expert judgement is available, which would score low on the scale, through to an internationally adopted assessment method complete with robust criteria and standards.

The confidence level has been allocated High, Medium or Low according to the framework described in Figure 1.2 and full information can be found in the Feeder Reports. We have only included information about low confidence in the summary assessment tables for simplicity of presentation.

Spatial and temporal aspects

It is vital that the data available are representative of the area assessed. For example, if our monitoring has historically focussed on a small area near the coast then using these data to assess the status of the region as a whole may give a false picture. There is no one scale that fits all issues equally well and the relationship between scales needs to be understood. This report aims to provide assessments at the regional scale and the extent of problems are reported on this basis.

However, we also identify in the report those cases where issues that need to be addressed occur in smaller areas within a Region or where the appropriate scale is larger than the Region.

The main timeframe considered in Charting Progress 2 is the five years that have passed since the first assessment; see Charting Progress. Because this period is probably too short to identify major changes in many environmental features, we have also set the changes reported within the context of any known long-term trends. The period over which reliable data is available varies considerably from component to component. In some cases, we are reporting information for the first time, while in others we have reliable data extending over decades. It is often apparent that we do not have sufficient observations over a long enough period to distinguish between what is simply natural environmental change and variability and changes induced by human activity. This problem is particularly the case for some parameters associated with climate change. We therefore need a strong understanding of the link between cause and effect in order to avoid taking action that is either unnecessary or that would result in the wrong outcome.

Communicating the findings

We have tried to present our findings in a clear and simple way to convey to the reader the state of various components of the marine environment and productive use of UK seas by marine industries, using summary tables and maps.

For Chapter 3 (Healthy and Biologically Diverse Seas) and Chapter 4 (Clean and Safe Seas), we have done this by using a simple traffic-light scale based on the assessments in the Feeder Reports to indicate whether there are ‘many problems’ (red), ‘some problems’ (amber) or ‘few or no problems’ (green) for each of the eight CP2 Regions.

This approach differs from that used in Charting Progress where the terms ‘acceptable’, ‘room for improvement’ and ‘unacceptable’ were used to describe the state for all of the UK seas together. For Charting Progress 2, we decided that reporting on the extent of problems in a Region was a more realistic approach giving policy makers a better perspective from which to make decisions about sustainable use of the marine environment. (See the Government Commentary which accompanies this report, available at: www.defra.gov.uk/environment/marine and on the resources page.)

For some components, it has been relatively straightforward to decide on the extent of the problems within a Region. For example, the eutrophication assessment showed that in some Regions, the eutrophication problems only occurred in several small estuaries. However, these areas, which are already being addressed under the EU Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive and the Nitrates Directive, constitute less than 0.2% of the area of each Region and less than 0.003% overall, so it was possible to assign the eutrophication status for these Regions with a green traffic light denoting ‘few or no problems’. However, for the habitats and species components it has sometimes been more difficult. The assessment addresses the condition of a component occurring within a Region, and the extent of the problems is based on the number of pressures exerted on it, or the impacts it receives, or a combination of the two. For example, the intertidal rock habitat in Region 5 is affected by rising sea levels and climate change and this has led to changes in a number of rocky shore communities. Even though the extent of the rocky shore habitat is small, within the context of Region 5 as a whole it is significant, so it was decided to allocate this component an amber status within Region 5, thus denoting ‘some problems’.

Although we have used all the evidence available, not all aspects have been covered, so we have had to rely on expert judgement in assigning ‘traffic light’ status to some of the components.

Where there is sufficient trend information available in the Feeder Reports, we have also used trend arrows in the summary tables and maps to indicate whether the state of the component over time is improving, deteriorating or remaining stable. In some cases, this is based on trends since Charting Progress, but in others, longer timeframes have been used and this is clearly set out in the Feeder Reports. Where the Feeder Reports have indicated that there is low confidence in the assessment for a particular component (for example when it is based largely on expert judgement rather than hard evidence), we have indicated this using white hatched bars on both the maps and summary tables.

Supporting national and international marine policies

Over the past few decades, policy makers have done substantial work at both the global and European level to agree principles, strategies and regulatory regimes that will protect and control use of the marine environment. The interaction between global/European and national policy-making is dynamic and the UK negotiators in the global and European working groups have been quite successful in influencing the outcomes and ensuring that national policies for protecting and conserving the marine environment are considered in policy decisions at all levels. Obligations at the global level include the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Convention on Biological Diversity and commitments under the World will be an exemplary model to the UN Assessment of Assessments, established by the UN General Assembly to provide the first step towards a global mechanism for reporting on and assessing of the state of the marine environment.

Regionally, the UK has monitoring agreements under the OSPAR Convention for the protection of the North-East Atlantic as well as reporting requirements under regional seas fisheries agreements. At the European level obligations exist under the Habitats (92/43/EEC) and Birds (2009/147/EC) Directives for the conservation of biodiversity, the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) which protects rivers, lakes, groundwater, estuaries and coastal waters, and the EU Common Fisheries Policy controlling commercial fishing. Most recently, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (2008/56/EC) which will impose significant new obligations, and in particular the requirement to put in place measures to achieve Good Environmental Status by 2020.

Table 1.2 shows the qualitative descriptors for determining Good Environmental Status under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and where associated information in this report can be found. The Conventions and Directives described above require the UK to undertake mandatory monitoring and assessment activities to demonstrate that its various commitments are working. The UK participates in the global and European frameworks as a single entity and so the approaches and negotiating positions are coordinated closely by the four UK Administrations before the relevant meetings. Charting Progress 2 will play a key role in helping the UK to fulfil its obligations under all these initiatives and regulations by providing a robust evidence base for the current and projected state of the marine environment.

Outcome of the assessment process

The evidence chapters (Chapter 2: Ocean Processes; Chapter 3: Healthy and Biologically Diverse Seas; Chapter 4: Clean and Safe Seas; Chapter 5: Productive Seas) and the climate change chapter (Chapter 6: Climate Change) on the following pages represent our best assessment of the overall status of key components of the marine ecosystem and the pressures that affect them. They are followed by the overall assessment chapter (Chapter 7: Common Issues and Regional Perspectives) which draws together all the information presented in the previous chapters and identifies issues that are common across UK seas and provides some more specific regional perspectives about the issues that affect how we are progressing toward the vision of clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas. Specific issues relating to the suitability of the assessment criteria, the level of confidence in the assessments and relevant spatial and/or temporal aspects are highlighted where appropriate.

Table 1.2 Descriptors for Good Environmental Status (GES) under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive.