In response to the recommendations from ‘Charting Progress’, the Government's State of the Seas Report published in 2005, the UK Marine Monitoring and Assessment Strategy (UKMMAS) was created. The UKMMAS is comprises of approximately 250 stakeholders from more than 20 organisations, including Government Departments and devolved Administrations, and has developed a co-ordinated approach to marine monitoring across the UK as a whole.
UKMMAS co-ordinates and brings together data, including that of long-term monitoring, from a large variety of sources. It is currently involved in producing ‘Charting Progress 2’—the second integrated assessment of the state of UK seas, which is internationally peer-reviewed. This is scheduled for publication in July 2010.
DEFRA also funds a number of research projects and data initiatives, some of which have helped continue important data series so that we can make assessments of marine trends over time and monitor progress. One such project, funded since 2002, is the Marine Environmental Change Network (MECN). The network consists of UK and Isle of Man organisations working together to collect long-term time series information for marine waters. It also brings together scientists working on various components of marine ecosystems, enabling them to share data and carry out more robust analysis of trends. One of the project aims is to be able to analyse marine environmental change over long periods and determine what is being driven by humans (anthropogenic change) and what change is due to natural variation.
The Government have recently published the first UK Marine Science Strategy, produced by the Marine Science Co-ordination Committee (MSCC). The strategy recognises the key importance of sustained observations to marine science and includes a commitment by the Committee to work with others to develop a prioritisation framework to ensure the provision of secure, long-term data sets. This action is being taken forward by the MSCC's Long-Term Monitoring Working Group.