Climate change continues to impact UK waters
The Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership
(MCCIP) has published its latest
Report Card, providing its most comprehensive assessment yet on how
climate change is affecting UK waters.
JNCC is one of the partner organisations of MCCIP which was
launched in 2005 and is a partnership between scientists,
government, its agencies, non-governmental organisations and
industry. Over 150 scientists from 55 leading UK science
organisations contributed to the 2013 report, which covers more
than 30 marine and coastal topics.
card explains how short term variability means some years will
be cooler than others. However, long term records clearly
demonstrate an overall warming trend in recent decades, which is
expected to continue in the future.
In addition, the 2013 report’s regional maps
highlight differences across the UK’s seas and show the importance
of local-scale impacts. For instance, the movement of fish species
– important to commercial and recreational fishermen – and how
non-native species are expanding their range are both covered.
International Ecosystem Service Conference
Matt Smith, JNCC’s Biodiversity Information Adviser, attended
the 6th International Ecosystem Service Partnership
(ESP) Conference in Bali, Indonesia in August. The emphasis of the
event was the practical application of the ecosystem services
concept in planning, management and decision making, and the
development of case studies. Matt was invited to present Phase
1 of JNCC's Ecosystem Service Framework Project alongside
ecosystem service practitioners representing nations from all over
the world, from Azerbaijan to Zanzibar. More information on the ESP
can be found here.
In recent years there has been an increasing shift in
conservation and natural resource management away from a focus on
single species, to an emphasis on ecosystem-level management.
Therefore, assessments of ecosystem condition are increasingly
needed to support evaluation of management effectiveness, and to
inform resource-management decisions. JNCC Report 490 examines
the potential use of expert judgment as a tool or approach within
marine biodiversity status assessments.
Coastal and marine ecosystems provide an
enormous range of services that are integral for the functioning of
society. Offshore marine environments provide a range of regulatory
and provisioning services such as deep carbon storage, regulating
the climate, providing food and cultural benefits such as
educational and scientific opportunities. Capturing how these
services are produced by marine systems, how they are valued by
individuals and society, and how they change over time, is an
important scientific and policy goal that is mandated by the
Ecosystem Approach. JNCC Report 491 provides a review of methods
developed for understanding ecosystem goods and services provided
by the marine environment.
The UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) published in 2011 was
the first independent assessment of the state and trends in the
UK’s ecosystems and the benefits they provide to society and the
economy. The NEA provides a substantial evidence base of the
ecosystem services (ES) that nature provides, how these have
changed over the past decades, prospects for the future and the
benefits of these to society.
A key finding from the NEA was that the links
between biodiversity and ecosystem services were not well
understood. In addition it is unclear how the management of areas
for nature conservation affects the delivery of ecosystem services.
Conservation actions include both the designation of sites and the
management of sites to improve their conservation status. Although
many studies have explored the impact of these actions on
conservation outcomes, far fewer have explored their impact on
ecosystem service delivery. JNCC Report 492 assesses how nature
conservation management affects ES delivery.