Publication Abstract

Disturbingly Undesirable Blooms?

J. Foden*, M.J. Devlin*, D.K. Mills* and S.J. Malcolm*

The OSPAR Comprehensive Procedure (CP) assesses the status of waters with regard to eutrophication, defined as ‘the enrichment of water by nutrients causing an accelerated growth of algae and higher forms of plant life to produce an undesirable disturbance to the balance of organisms present in the water and to the quality of the water concerned’. One of the assessment criteria is ‘the shift from long-lived macrophytes to short-lived nuisance species’, interpreted as the existence of excessive blooms of opportunistic macroalgae (such as Ulva spp.).

Macroalgal bloom abundance was used to help establish whether the UK’s OSPAR marine (coastal or offshore) areas were being undesirable disturbed. Data were assessed using thresholds based on the metrics developed under the WFD (Scanlan et al., 2007), which were simplified for the OSPAR CP.  Only one marine area failed the OSPAR thresholds. None of the areas were found to exhibit signs of undesirable disturbance.

Reference

J. Foden*, M.J. Devlin*, D.K. Mills* and S.J. Malcolm* (2008) Disturbingly Undesirable Blooms? British Phycological Society Winter Meeting 2008