Applying risk-based approaches to implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive in the North-East Atlantic

• Published in: Marine Policy
• Main Authors: Verling, Emma, Bartilotti, Cátia, Hollatz, Claudia, Tuaty-Guerra, Miriam, Lobo-Arteaga, Jorge, O'Higgins, Tim
• Other Authors: MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Expert judgement; Harmonisation; MSFD; Non-indigenous species; Risk assessment; Underwater noise; Aquatic Science; Environmental Science(all); Economics and Econometrics; Management; Monitoring; Policy and Law; Law; SDG 14 - Life Below Water; North East Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/154985; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2023.105667

Funding Information: This work was supported by the Directorate-General Environment of the European Commission (Grant Number 110661/2018/794607/SUB/ENV.C2 ). Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia ( FCT , Portugal), through the strategic projects , and the project LA/P/0069/2020 granted to the Associate Laboratory ARNET - Aquatic Research Network. We are very grateful to all partners of the RAGES (Risk Based Approaches to Good Environmental Status; https://www.msfd.eu/rages/rages.html) consortium for discussions during the development of this work, particularly to Jean-Marc Brignon and Valentin Chapon for their contributions to discussions around the application of the ELECTRE II approach. We are also indebted to the RAGES partners as well as to invited experts that contributed to the NIS lists and to the HS exercise. Finally, we would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their remarks, which improved the quality of this work. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors Risk-based Approaches (RBA) are increasingly playing an explicit and important role in a number of environmental regulations across Europe and globally. In this paper, we summarise a generic RBA developed for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and its application to two descriptors of Good Environmental Status (GES) for marine waters, Non-Indigenous Species and Underwater Energy and Noise (Descriptors 2 and 11). We provide an overview of the findings and outcomes emerging from the application, which focus on identifying common advantages as well as common challenges encountered in the application of the RBA. Recommendations are then made, aimed at identifying potential solutions to the common problems, particularly in relation to data and expert-judgement approaches. Further recommendations address the development of governance structures to facilitate the uptake of risk-based approaches at the level of the MSFD common implementation strategy. Finally, some general and specific recommendations are made to effectively embed RBA and ...