Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

E2: Environmental statistics and accounts; sustainable development

e-mail contact : ESTAT-SDG-MONITORING@ec.europa.eu

The indicator is part of the EU Biodiversity Strategy Dashboard to monitor target 15 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy.

The indicator is closeley related to the EU Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicator set and can be considered as similar to the global SDG indicator 14.4.1 "Proportion of fish stocks within biologically sustainable levels".

The indicator is also used to report on the situation of fish stocks under the Common Fisheries Policy, that is meant to ensure that the activities of the fishing and aquaculture sectors are environmentally sustainable in the long term and are managed in a way that is consistent with the objectives of achieving economic, social and employment benefits. It is also used to monitor pressures on commercially-exploited species in the frame of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, which takes a comprehensive and integrated approach to the protection of the marine environment and natural resources with the aim of achieving good environmental status of EU marine waters that are ecologically diverse, clean healthy and productive.

The indicator shows the proportion of fish stocks that are evaluated using a full analytical stock assessment method and that are sustainably exploited (for which F≤ F_MSY) in the EU marine waters of the North-East Atlantic and adjacent seas (FAO area 27) and Mediterranean and Black Sea (FAO area 37). F is the estimated fishing mortality (as opposed to natural mortality) derived from single species stock assessment methods. The stock is considered exploited at a sustainable level if F≤F_MSY. The indicator is computed based on single species quantitative stock assessments. The full time series is updated every year, sometimes including new stocks due to newly available quantitative assessments which can result in small differences from one release year to the next.

Methodology

1) Run a benchmark assessment for the stocks of interest to identify a model to perform stock assessment and set the parameters. Derive the Fmsy reference point (among other reference points). Work is carried out by a dedicated Expert Working Group for each stock at either ICES / STECF / GFCM
2) Run the benchmarked stock assessment model annually for each stock. Work is carried out by Expert Working Groups in charge at either ICES / STECF / GFCM.
3) Publish stock assessment outputs including fishing mortality in scientific reports.
3) Export estimated fishing mortalities (F) from ICES / STECF / GFCM databases
4) Compare estimated F outputs to associated Fmsy and count the number of stocks for which F>Fmsy and the number of stocks for which F ≤ F_MSY
5) Estimate the percentage of stocks for which F ≤ F_MSY

Details of the protocol are presented in Annex I of the report https://stecf.jrc.ec.europa.eu/documents/43805/1035398/STECF+23-01+adhoc+-+CFP+Monitoring.pdf/791ff920-33a6-42a9-9e61-820a29886062?version=1.1&download=true

Assessed fish stock:

i Number

Sustainably exploited fish stocks: 

i Number

ii Percentage

Calendar year

Indicator from non-ESS sources. For assessment of accuracy please refer to the original source (see link to external data source and metadata in section “Annexes”).

JRC (STECF)

Data source: Monitoring the performance of the Common Fisheries Policy Report (STECF)

Data provider: Joint Research Centre (JRC).
Time series for the EU waters of the North-East Atlantic and adjacent seas are provided by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES).

For the Mediterranean and Black Sea region (FAO area 37), the information were extracted from the STECF Mediterranean Expert Working Group repositories (https://stecf.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reports/medbs) and from the GFCM stock assessment forms (https://www.fao.org/gfcm/data/star).

Every year

Indicator is updated annually in April.

T+2 years

New data points are disseminated three years after the reference year.

Not Applicable

No data for individual countries are presented. Data cover the North-East Atlantic and adjacent seas (FAO area 27) and the Mediterranean and Black Sea region (FAO area 37).

Not Applicable

Indicator does not refer to individual countries but to FAO areas 27 and 37.

> 10 years

Presented time series starts in year 2003. The EU aggregate is only available until 2020 to respect the time limit set to the Mediterranean and Black Sea time series.

> 4 data points

Length of comparable time series without methodological break is longer than 4 data points. The full time series is updated every year, sometimes including new stocks due to newly available quantitative assessments which can result in small differences from one release year to the next.

Not applicable.

see table env_bio5 

Not applicable.

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