Sierra Leone - State of the Marine Environment 2015

gas development require specific monitoring and reporting obligations be met by operators. Pressures are linked to socioeconomic benefits that states derive from marine based industries and the inclusion of socioeconomic aspects is a key component of the World Ocean Assessment. Using marine habitats to structure an assessment has the advantage that habitat is the property that inherently integrates many ecosystem features, including higher and lower trophic level species, water quality, oceanographic conditions and many types of anthropogenic pressures. The cumulative aspect of multiple pressures affecting the same habitat, that is often lost in sector-based environmental reporting, is captured by using habitats as reporting and assessment units.

Figure 2. Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) Framework as used by the UN World Ocean Assessment in relation to the ocean environment. Drivers result in Pressures that have an effect on the State of the environment (the assessment of which is the purpose of SOME reporting). The implementation of monitoring is required to gauge the effectiveness of policy Responses. Using ecosystem services to structure an assessment follows the approach of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. This has the key advantage of broad acceptance in environmental reporting. It includes provisioning services (food, construction materials, renewable energy, coastal protection) while highlighting regulating services and quality- of-life services that are not captured using a pressures or habitats approach to structure the assessment. Given that all three approaches have their own particular advantages, all three approaches should be included in the structure of SOME Assessments as far as possible. 3.2. Assessment Parameters Based on the approach adopted by the UN World Ocean Assessment, the present SOME-EE process will use the following condition parameters for the condition assessment : habitats and the species they support, ecosystem processes (and services) including physical and chemical processes, pressures and socioeconomic benefits.

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