The Quality Status Report 2010 – the QSR 2010 – is a milestone for evaluating the quality status of the North-East Atlantic and for taking forward OSPAR’s vision of a clean, healthy and biologically diverse sea. It follows up on the previous quality status report – the QSR 2000 – as well as earlier QSRs specific to the North Sea. The QSR 2010 reflects the collective effort made by Contracting Parties over the period 1998 to 2008 to manage, monitor and assess the many pressures on the diverse ecosystems of the North-East Atlantic and the impacts that they bring.
Download1The Quality Status Report 2010
Ten years of managing, monitoring and assessing the marine environment
The vast sea area covered by the OSPAR Convention is the home of a wide range of ecosystems which vary in diversity and sensitivity. It hosts an ever-growing number of human activities, each with impacts on the marine environment, and there are emerging threats from climate change. How is the North-East Atlantic responding to these pressures? What are we doing about it? Is it working? These are the questions being posed by scientists, politicians, and the public alike. OSPAR’s monitoring and assessment activities provide a solid basis for answering such questions and for the necessary political action to resolve them.