Methodological elements for optimising the spatial monitoring design to support regional benthic ecosystem assessments.

Benthic habitat condition assessments are a requirement under various environmental directives. The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), for example, challenges member states in a European sea region to perform comparable assessments of good environmental status and improve coherence of their monitoring programmes by 2020. Currently, North Sea countries operate independent monitoring programmes using nationally defined assessment areas.

Advances in assessing reefs for ongoing monitoring.

Standardized and repeatable data acquisition and analyses are required to enable the mapping and condition monitoring of reefs within Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Changes in habitat condition must be reliably identified and reported to best support evidence-based management. Biogenic reefs in temperate waters, that is, hard matter created by living organisms and raised above the seabed, provide food and shelter for many plant and animal species.