Development and test of at least two indicators for the assessment of habitat states which incorportate quality evaluation in the set of criteria. Two stages of implementing action will be carried out.
- First stage - two additional indicators will be developed:
- The first indicator would enable to define habitat quality by estimating how far observed level of habitat forming species relative coverage diverges from the optimal (favourable reference value).
- The second indicator will allow to estimate the state of species richness in respect to habitat type.
- Additional - the deffinitions of habitats will be reassessed and adjusted for the Baltic Sea offshore conditions.
- Second stage - newly designed indicators tested again in newly designed marine protected areas and customized, if necessary. No changes in demarcation of borders of the MPA are thought to be influenced after the realisation of second stage.
Results in the Mid-term of the Project:
For the development of indicators of biodiversity and ecological stat of habitats, several existing indicators were compared - starting from most simple ones as Shannon-Wiener index, PEQI index developed in Latvia for characterization of Eutrophication, to Estonian index benthic organisms as an indicator of habitat quality (for BD and MSFD) and the German assessment system (MarBIT). The most promising seemed to be MarBIT indicator that provides an opportunity to assess the quality of benthic communities (according to the WFD and BD) using criteria such as species composition, community diversity, functional and ecological indicators such as functional groups, life strategy and environmental status (according to the WFD), assessing, for example, the sensitivity of species to environmental factors such as eutrophication.
The development of a second indicator was scheduled for the second part of the activity when information on aphotic habitats of EEZ will be available.
