Future Marine Assessment and Monitoring of the Baltic – BONUS FUMARI

The aim of BONUS FUMARI is to make a proposal for a renewed monitoring system of the Baltic Sea marine environment. This will require a thorough review of the gaps between the monitoring requirements set in the international legislation and the existing monitoring and data management. BONUS FUMARI will also explore the possibilities that novel monitoring methods can offer to address the shortcomings in the existing monitoring system. The recommendations aim to enhance the spatial coverage, comparability, sensitivity and cost effectiveness of Baltic Sea monitoring.

The monitoring requirements are based on a wide range of international and European legislation, directives and policies. This can create overlapping and sometimes even divergent demands for the monitoring. Evaluating the current policy implementation with a gap analysis is necessary to define the synergies between various directives and to achieve their common goal of sustainable marine ecosystem management.

BONUS FUMARI builds on past evaluations of relevant directives and combines these with the insights and lessons learned in the various freshwater and marine projects that the project partners and researchers have been involved in. The combined experience from both marine and freshwater monitoring will be a valuable basis for the evaluation and the new recommendations.

Many stakeholders (e.g. ministries, national and regional authorities, NGOs etc.) are either directly or indirectly involved in the monitoring of the Baltic Sea. BONUS FUMARI will involve these stakeholders comprehensively in the building of a better and more efficient monitoring system.

Outputs of the project will include three review papers and related policy briefs that address current monitoring systems and their gaps in relation to legislative requirements, shortcomings and improvements of data management, and novel monitoring methods that could be applied in marine monitoring.

BONUS FUMARI sets out to answer the following questions:

• Does the current monitoring sufficiently address the requirements set by the European Union´s data collection regulation, Water Framework Directive and Marine Strategy Framework Directive, and HELCOM´s Baltic Sea Action Plan?
• What are the most critical shortcomings in the current marine monitoring programs?
• Which novel methods could efficiently enhance the coverage, cost effectiveness and reliability of the Baltic marine monitoring?
• How and when can these novel methods be used in operational monitoring?
• How could the monitoring system be rearranged and complemented with traditional and novel methods for improved coverage, sensitivity, and cost effectiveness?