Definition of Ecosystem Areas
The definition of clear boundaries of ecosystems, consistent with management scales, is a requirement for the development of successful ecosystem management plans.
This Work Package seeks to:
Select a suite of candidate ecosystem areas that represent a range of ecosystem scales and that might be used to develop EAF for the waters around Ireland- Develop criteria for the selection and evaluation of the boundaries of these ecosystem areas;
- Select a final set of ecosystem areas for the project based on these criteria and that ensure a match between the fisheries management boundaries and ecosystem area boundaries;
- Identify human activities and their impacts in each of the Ecosystem areas;
- Identify relevant stakeholders in each Ecosystem area;
- Identify relevant oceanographic, biogeographic, ecological, management and policy areas for these ecosystem areas and synthesise into Ecosystem descriptions;
- Identify candidate ecosystem components (indicators) which are important to the health of the Ecosystems areas;
- Provide a first crude estimate on the health of each ecosystem based on the ecosystem components (indicators);
- Identify relevant data sets for each Ecosystem area for input to the Baseline Information work theme.