Baltic Marine Environment
Protection Commission

 

Baltic Marine Environment
Protection Commission

SPICE

Implementation and development of key components for the assessment of Status, Pressures and Impacts, and Social and Economic evaluation in the Baltic Sea marine region (2017)

SPICE is a HELCOM coordinated project that is co-financed by the EU. The project is designed to contribute directly to the finalization of the ‘Second HELCOM Holistic Assessment of Ecosystem Health in the Baltic Sea ‘ that is carried out by HELCOM through the HELCOM HOLAS II project.

The assessment will cover the whole Baltic Sea marine region and will provide information on the overall environmental status of and pressures on the Baltic Sea as well as social and economic aspects that are linked to the status of the Sea and the human activities impacting upon it.

The assessment is developed to follow-up the goals and objectives agreed by all coastal countries and EU in the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) as well as to be used for the 2018 reporting under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) as agreed by those Contracting Parties of the Helsinki Convention that are also EU Member States.

The SPICE project will specifically contribute to:

  • Theme 1: finalizing and quality assure the thematic assessments on biodiversity, eutrophication, hazardous substances as well as pressures and impacts and support the final collation of data and the visual presentation of results,
  • Theme 2: developing marine litter indicators towards operationalization and prepare a proposal for the assessment of marine litter in the 2nd holistic assessment,
  • Theme 3: further developing and implementing the economic and social analyses at the Baltic Sea regional scale,
  • Theme 4: developing guidelines for assessments of cumulative impacts and thresholds related to pelagic and seabed habitats.

Dedicated workshops will be organized for experts from HELCOM countries as well as other Regional Seas Conventions to take part in the development and testing of the project components.

The project will be carried out in 2017 by HELCOM and the five additional partners: Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (SwAM), University of Tartu, Estonia (EMI), Polish Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (IMGW) and Stockholm Environment Institute Tallinn Centre, Estonia (SEI Tallinn).

Project deliverables

Theme 1:

Theme 2:

Theme 3:

Theme 4:

For more information, please contact: ​

Mock Employee
Jannica Haldin

Professional Secretary
(Gear WG, State and Conservation WG)
Jannica.Haldin@helcom.fi
Tel: +358 40 485 5905​