ATLAS Deliverable 3.1 Good Environmental Status and Biodiversity Assessments

Attention is drawn to the work conducted by International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) as well as by the Oslo/Paris convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR) and the Helsinki Commission for Baltic Marine Protection (HELCOM). [...] The limited data availability and liability of the existing data, and also the lack of details given by the EC (whether to approach the combination of different indicators in the evaluation per stock or for the pool of the species) made it difficult to assess GES at the level expected by the EC. [...] The quantity and liability of the existing data and the lack of details given by the EC in how to approach the combination of different indicators in the evaluation per stock or for the pool of the species made it difficult to assess GES at the level expected by the EC Descriptor 6 The Azores IE highlighted the difficulties in evaluating this descriptor due to the large diversity of benthic habita. [...] - The status of the habitats, evaluated considering the status of the species and typical communities is maintained within the values that guarantee their perpetuation, functioning, maintenance of characteristic and key species - Regarding the descriptors of habitat condition for rocky habitats, GES is defined as the situation where the values for the different descriptors/indicators of condition. [...] The analysis of the tendencies of the historical series is not indicative of GES and they only suggest (for a larger number of species than the one considered under the GES concept) that the current and recent status of stocks and species are (considered as a pool) close to values of the average of the historical data series (values close to 1.00).