Quality Status Report development meeting

Preparations for OSPAR’s Quality Status Report (QSR) 2023 continued in an online meeting on 24-25 February 2021. OSPAR’s group on managing delivery of the QSR (ICG-QSR) has already delivered a strong foundation which will be built upon in 2021 which is a crucial year for the delivery of the draft indictor assessments which underpin the QSR. Marine scientists and policy makers from eleven Contracting Parties around the North-East Atlantic, and the European Union, participated and great progress was made.

The new Co-Convenors of ICG-QSR, Lisette Enserink (Netherlands) and Patrick Roose (Belgium) welcomed participants to the meeting and expressed their pleasure in taking on the role of co-convenors of ICG-QSR. The two co-convenors have lived through several QSR’s, and hope to bring to the group sufficient expertise and stamina to help ICG-QSR to proudly present the finalised QSR in 2023.

The meeting welcomed Julien Favier, the newly arrived QSR 2023 Project Coordinator, who is responsible for supporting the work of OSPAR’s Intersessional Correspondence Group on managing delivery of the QSR 2023 and plays an essential role in helping draw the many strands of work together.

The meeting agreed on several aspects pertaining to the preparations for the QSR, notably on project management, timelines, and guidance documents for the numerous assessment leads involved in the delivery of the QSR products. ICG-QSR also welcomed the impressive progress made by OSPAR Committees and other Intersessional Correspondence Groups involved in the delivery of QSR products, or crucially supporting this delivery. Notably, OSPAR’s economic and social analysis, and cumulative effects groups demonstrated great progress being made.

Importantly, the meeting agreed to thank the United Kingdom for taking the lead in developing a climate change thematic assessment and lead the climate change assessment expert group tasked with delivering this assessment.

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OSPAR undertakes a full assessment of the state of the North-East Atlantic every 10 years. The last full Quality Status Report was in 2010. Although not all OSPAR Contracting Parties are EU member states, a decision was taken to move the assessments in line with reporting under the EU’s Marine Strategy Framework Directive. This is OSPAR’s Quality Status Report 2023. To bridge the gap between 2010 and 2023, OSPAR undertook an Intermediate Assessment in 2017. All OSPAR assessments are available on our Assessment Portal.