Baltic Sea project to boost regional coherence of marine strategies through improved data flow, assessments, and knowledge Base for development of measures (BalticBOOST) (39312)

The general objective of the project is to enhance regional coherence in the accomplishment of the 2018 reporting under the EU MSFD by developing joint tools, defining data needs and to set up data arrangements to support indicator-based assessments of the state of and pressures on the Baltic Sea. The project take steps towards development of joint environmental targets for pressures affecting seabed habitats by developing a knowledge base and principles for defining such targets. The project addresses in particular MSFD Descriptors 1, 6, 8 and 11.

BalticBOOST is based on five themes with one or several work packages:
- Theme 1. Biodiversity.
- Theme 2. Hazardous substances.
- Theme 3. Physical loss and damage to seabed habitats.
- Theme 4. Noise.
- Theme 5. Joint documentation of Programmes of Measures. 

DTU Aqua is involved in themes 3 and 5:

-Theme 3: Physical loss and damage to seabed habitats, develops joint principles for defining environmental targets for pressures affecting seabed habitats (WP 3.1). The development of such environmental targets is challenging and as a starting point the WP explores ways to determine how much disturbance from different activities that specific seabed habitats can tolerate while remaining in Good Environmental Status (GES). Under this Theme, a tool for assessing the impacts of fishing gear on specific habitat types and species is also developed (WP 3.2). Finally, an arrangement for regular collection of data and information on pressures and activities that affect the Baltic Sea is piloted, to provide support to this Theme as well as future assessment of pressures impacting the Baltic Sea (WP 3.3). A shared component across Themes 1-3 is improving access to high quality data to carry out future assessments feeding into the MSFD reporting. This involves alignment of the formats of reported data to relevant international or European data format and making the resultant spatial data products (indicator maps) available as INSPIRE compliant (OGC WMS/WFS) web map services.

- Theme 5: Joint documentation of Programmes of Measures (PoMs), provides support for HELCOM GEAR, the working group responsible for regional coordination in the implementation of the HELCOM BSAP and the MSFD. Support is provided to the agreed development of a joint document on regional coordinated PoMs and a system to follow-up actions agreed by HELCOM.

DTU Aqua is involved in Theme 3, WP3.1 and especially WP3.2, where we will develop methods for assessing and apply fishing intensity maps according to fishing gear (footprint), explore benthic sensitivity indicators of fishery, and evaluate fishing impact according to MSFD indicators, all with focus on the Femern Belt Case Study. DTU Aqua is responsible for and coordinating the Technical WP3.2 (coordinator Prof. J. Rasmus Nielsen).

Partners
National Institute of Aquatic Resources, DTU Aqua
Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission - Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) (coordinator)
Finnish Environment Institute, Finland
NIVA Denmark Water Research, Denmark
University of Tartu, Estonia
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
Totalförsvarets Forskningsinstitut, Sweden
Latvian Fund for Nature, Latvia
Swedish Museum of Natural History, Sweden
Thünen-Institute, Germany; Leibniz-Institute for Baltic Sea Research, Germany
International Council for the Exploration of The Sea, Denmark

Funding
This project is funded by EU, Calls for proposals/tenders (DG ENV/MSFD Action Plans/2014).

Research area: Fisheries Management