The high resolution forest product consists of three types of (status) products and additional change products. The status products are available for the 2012 and 2015 reference years:
1. Tree cover density providing level of tree cover density in a range from 0-100%
2. Dominant leaf type providing information on the dominant leaf type: broadleaved or coniferous
3. A Forest type product. The forest type product allows to get as close as possible to the FAO forest definition. In its original (20m) resolution it consists of two products: 1) a dominant leaf type product that has a MMU of 0.5 ha, as well as a 10% tree cover density threshold applied, and 2) a support layer that maps, based on the dominant leaf type product, trees under agricultural use and in urban context (derived from CLC and high resolution imperviousness 2009 data). For the final 100m product trees under agricultural use and urban context from the support layer are removed.
The high resolution forest change products comprise a simple tree cover density change product for 2012-2015 (% increase or decrease of real tree cover density changes).
The indicator tracks both the status of the commercial fish stocks in European Regional Seas and the pressure exerted by fisheries on those stocks as well as the quality of the information available. To that end, the following is reported:
The status of the marine fish and shellfish stocks based on the current level of exploitation and the reproductive capacity.
The importance of the (sub)region reflected by the total landings (as a proxy of catch) of fish from commercial fisheries in European Seas per MSFD (sub)region, and the availability of appropriate information for the status assessment as reflected by the proportion of those landings covered by quantitative stock assessments (i.e. providing the required indicators and their reference levels).
Status of marine fish and shellfish stocks
The MSFD requires 'Good Environmental Status' by 2020 (EC, 2008). According to the MSFD (Descriptor 3), three criteria apply to determine if a fish or shellfish stock achieves GES:
Sustainable exploitation: Sustainably exploited stocks are stocks for which fishing mortality (F) is at or below levels that deliver Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), i.e. F ≤ F MSY . Thus, only if a value of F and F MSY is available is the stock assessed against this criterion considered, and only if F ≤ F MSY, is the stock considered to have achieved GES.
Reproductive capacity: in the ICES area, the criterion for reproductive capacity (SSB > SSB MSY ) is modified for pragmatic reasons into SSB > MSY B trigger . SSB is consistently provided as part of the ICES stock assessments, i.e. North-East Atlantic and Baltic Sea, but not for the most part by STECF assessments, i.e. involving the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea stocks. Similar to the above, a stock is considered to have been assessed against this criterion if SSB and a good proxy for SSB MSY are available and only when SSB > SSB MSY is the stock considered to have achieved GES.
Healthy age and size structure: here the assumption is that a stock with sufficient old and large fish is healthy and that more older/larger fish increase its health. However, this criterion is not sufficiently developed and no threshold for GES is known for this criterion. Therefore it is not included.
This has resulted in four assessment categories:
Not: no sufficient information available to assess the status;
F: Status assessed based only on F and F MSY;
SSB: status assessed based only on (SSB) and SSB MSY (or some proxy i.e. MSY B trigger );
F & SSB: status assessed based on both the F and SSB criteria.
Total landings
Landings are based on the ICES Official Nominal Catches dataset and the FAO annual statistics on 'GFCM (Mediterranean and Black Sea) capture production'. The statistic comprise of catch statistics reported by country, species and area or division.
Only some of the species/taxa in the landings data can be considered 'commercial fish', which, for assessment purposes may consist of several stocks. Only part of these stocks is covered by quantitative stock assessments such that their status can be assessed based on the above criteria.
Stocks
In the North-East Atlantic area, stocks are generally defined based on biological criteria and knowledge of population migration, mixing and spawning areas. For example, cod is currently considered to form eight different stocks, i.e. Subareas I and II (Northeast Arctic), Division Va (Iceland grounds), Subdivision Vb1 (Faroe Plateau), Subarea IV and Divisions VIId and IIIa West, Subdivisions 22-24 (Western Baltic Sea), Division VIa (West of Scotland), Division VIIa (Irish Sea) and Divisions VIIe-k (Western English Channel), between which mixing is negligible. These eight stocks cover five MSFD (sub)regions, i.e. the Baltic Sea, North Sea, Celtic Sea, Barents Sea and the Icelandic waters.
In the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, on the other hand, stocks are mostly defined by management area due to lack of biological knowledge. Because these stocks are based on a specific geographic area, most can be attributed to a specific MSFD (sub)region.
Safeguarding healthy commercial fish and shellfish populations is one of the 11 descriptors of the Marine Stretegy Framework Directive (MSFD) for achieving GES. This objective is closely related to the objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), in particular the objective of ensuring the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) for all stocks by 2015 where possible, and at the latest by 2020.
Currently, around 74 % of the assessed fish and shellfish stocks in Europe’s seas are not in GES, whereas only 26 % are in GES when assessing both the level of fishing mortality and reproductive capacity; this assessment does not include the third GES criterion on age and size structure of the populations as this cannot be assessed at present. These percentages vary considerably between MSFD (sub)regions — from at least 67-88 % of the stocks meeting at least one of the GES criteria in the regions in the NE Atlantic and the Baltic Sea to only one out of 27 (4 %) and one out of 8 (13 %) in the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea respectively.
Important signs of improvement are being observed in the NE Atlantic Ocean and Baltic Sea. Since the early 2000s, better management of fish and shellfish stocks has contributed to a clear decrease in fishing pressure in these two regional seas. Signs of recovery in the reproductive capacity of several fish and shellfish stocks have started to appear. If these efforts continue, meeting the 2020 objective for healthy fish and shellfish stocks in the NE Atlantic Ocean and Baltic Sea could be possible based on two of the three criteria (i.e. fishing mortality and reproductive capacity). In contrast, there is little likelihood that the 2020 policy objective will be met in the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
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