1. Introduction

OSPAR in the North-East Atlantic

The OSPAR Maritime Area encompasses the North-East Atlantic and its adjacent seas – a highly productive and biologically rich area covering approximately 13,5 million km² of marine and coastal ecosystems.  When functioning properly these ecosystems significantly contribute to human wellbeing in the Contracting Parties to the OSPAR Convention, comprising 15 countries and the European Union. Recognising the importance of clean, healthy, and productive seas to this region and to the world, OSPAR has committed to systematic periodic assessments of the drivers of degradation, the multiple pressures exerted on marine systems including climate change and ocean acidification, the state of the marine environment and the ecosystems within it. These assessments have been performed across the OSPAR Maritime Area, spanning national waters as well as the approximately 40% of the OSPAR Maritime Area that exists outside national jurisdictions (referred to as Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction or ABNJ). OSPAR has divided its Maritime Area into five regions: Region I – Arctic Waters; Region II – Greater North Sea; Region III – Celtic Seas; Region IV – Bay of Biscay and Iberian Coast; and Region V – Wider Atlantic (Figure 1.1). The assessments conducted across these Regions and that underpin OSPAR’s Quality Status Report 2023 (QSR 2023) help to inform the development of measures that address the threats to, and their cumulative impacts on, the marine environment. The QSR 2023 is another milestone in OSPAR’s ongoing efforts to understand the status of the North-East Atlantic and an essential contribution to achieving its vision of a clean, healthy, and biologically diverse North-East Atlantic Ocean which is productive, used sustainably and resilient to climate change and ocean acidification.

OSPAR Strategies and Quality Status Reports

OSPAR’s vision is captured in its North-East Atlantic Environment Strategy 2030 (NEAES 2030), which all OSPAR Contracting Parties have committed to implement. The NEAES 2030 tackles head-on the three main challenges in the OSPAR Maritime Area: loss of biodiversity, pollution, and resilience to climate change. OSPAR relies on scientific assessments, the most current of which is summarised in the QSR 2023. The QSR 2023 reflects the work of the Contracting Parties, scientists, experts and their institutions, and the OSPAR Secretariat, to assess the status of various components of the North-East Atlantic and examine how conditions have changed since the last QSR (2010). The OSPAR Contracting Parties have progressively invested in more sophisticated monitoring and analysis of changes to the North-East Atlantic, both to support science-based decision making and to move towards a better understanding of the effectiveness of management and policy responses. The resulting QSR 2023 is a holistic assessment of the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic produced in collaboration with over 400 scientists and policy experts from across the region, providing a foundation for effective science-based policy.

Navigating the QSR 2023 Synthesis Report

The QSR 2023 Synthesis Report is an online publication which allows you to read the whole report or to dip in and access those elements in which you are most interested. The full report begins with short key messages that capture the main findings and recommendations stemming from the more than 120 assessments delivered as outputs of the QSR 2023 process. This summary of main messages presents key findings on pressures, biodiversity, climate change and ocean acidification, and highlights how OSPAR has been addressing them. This is followed by highlighting of success stories or bright spots. The report then summarises OSPAR assessment methodologies and the benefits they deliver, with a focus on the QSR 2023 and its analysis of pressures, including climate change and ocean acidification. The next section describes how the ecosystems in the OSPAR Maritime Area deliver valuable ecosystem services covering society’s need for food and materials, climate regulation, energy, industrial processes and economic development, and a host of cultural services that support our health and wellbeing.

The main part of the Report is then laid out in three sections. The first recaps the progress made towards OSPAR’s strategic objective of achieving clean seas, with implications for the future. It sets out information on changing pressures and the human activities that drive these pressures, including pollution by hazardous and radioactive substances, eutrophication, marine litter, invasive species and noise pollution, together with Contracting Party responses. The next section discusses how the biodiversity of the OSPAR Maritime Area has been affected by pressures over the assessment period and discusses what is known about the extent to which responses such as marine protected areas have slowed the loss of biodiversity. The third section integrates the information on human activities with the scientific information available on how sustainably the OSPAR Maritime Area and its resources have been used during the last decade, and makes projections of the Area’s probable condition into the future under various scenarios.

The final parts of the Report discuss the importance of the underlying driver of climate change, then reflects on the important role that the OSPAR Convention plays in showing how science can support effective decision making and cooperation to safeguard shared seas. Lastly, the Report offers recommendations and proposes how science-based assessments could be improved to support the attainment of the strategic objectives outlined in the NEAES 2030.