Report: LAWA: Rating Makrzoobenthos — Test MarBIT extension (2006)»

“The objective of this project is to assess whether the assessment procedure for the Baltic Sea of the macrozoobenthos of coastal waters under WFD is also applicable to the coastal waters of the North Sea. If this is the case, the MarBIT should be adapted accordingly to the conditions in the North Sea. The Baltic Sea system MarBIT is based on the evaluation of four different criteria, which are considered as pointers for ecological status: Biodiversity, abundance, proportion of sensitive taxa and proportion of tolerant taxa. For more details on the MarBIT system, please refer to the report by MEYER ET AL. (2006). The evaluation of the zoobenthos is to be used at level 3 of the hierarchical evaluation system according to Escaravage & YSEBART (2004) to assess the health status of the community of macrozoobenthos within a defined ecotope. As part of this contract, the suitability test in coordination with the contracting authority (AG) was limited to the ecotop “Sublitoral, 0-5 m” in coastal water type N2 (euhalinesWattenmeer). This area includes the Jade and the waddings of the eastern part of the East Frisian islands. For this purpose, data sets of broods, derived species lists and autecology data were transmitted to the contractor (AN). These were analysed, integrated into the MarBIT database and further processed there.»