The EcApRHA project

The EcApRHA project is a 15 month project co-financed by the EU DG Environment running from December 2015-February 2017. Its full title is 'Addressing gaps in biodiversity indicator development for the OSPAR Region from data to ecosystem assessment: Applying an ecosystem approach to (sub) regional habitat assessments'. Quite a mouthful!

The task for this project is to overcome challenges in developing regional biodiversity indicators for application of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (56/2008/EU), especially for pelagic habitats, benthic habitats and food webs. These challenges relate to access to and use of data, developing options for improved coordination of monitoring, how to construct regional indicators and undertake assessments of the indicators, as well as how these might fit together across scales and biodiversity components to work towards more of an ecosystem approach.

EcApRHA (Grant No. 11.0661/2015/712630/SUB/ENVC.2 OSPAR) is co-financed by the EU DG Environment and will be implemented through collaboration of nine partners under the coordination of the OSPAR Secretariat. The partners are: Bioconsult, Biologie des Organismes et Ecosystèmes Aquatiques – Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique (BOREA-CNRS), Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO), Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (MNHN), Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), and the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS).

^{Image: NOAA - Hidden Ocean Expedition}