• Observing and modelling
  • European Marine Ecosystem Observatory (EMECO)
  • Monitoring programmes
    • Clean Seas Environment Monitoring Programme
      • Background
      • Drivers and aims
      • Monitoring
      • Site locations
      • Resources
      • Redesign
    • UK-Netherlands collaborative monitoring programme
    • Sea temperature and salinity trends
    • Monitoring sites
    • WaveNet
  • Survey tools
• Marine Climate Change Centre (MC3)
• Ecosystems and biodiversity
• Assessing human impacts
• Animal health and food safety
• Fisheries information

Background

In the late 1980s the Marine Pollution Monitoring Management Group (MPMMG) established the UK National Monitoring Plan (NMP). MPMMG was tasked to ensure that Government organisations with statutory marine environmental protection and monitoring obligations undertook this work in a co-ordinated and cost effective manner.

Phase one of the NMP, carried out between 1993 and 1995, provided a spatial overview of contaminant concentrations in the UK. It recorded information on the distribution of contaminants, including persistent organic pollutants, trace metals in water, sediment, shellfish and fish.

NMMP2

Phase two of the programme, known as the National Marine Monitoring Programme (NMMP) started in 1999. It addressed the continuing need to meet the UKs marine monitoring commitments co-ordinated through the Oslo and Paris Commission (OSPAR). OSPARs Joint Assessment and Monitoring programme (JAMP) and the Nutrients Monitoring Programme (replaced by the Eutrophication Monitoring Programme in 2005) require contracting parties to monitor the marine environment. NMMP2 was designed also to meet the temporal trend monitoring requirements of OSPAR.

CSEMP

Following the implementation of a new UK Marine Monitoring and Assessment Strategy (UKMMAS) in 2006 the programme was re-named the Clean Seas Environment Monitoring Programme (CSEMP).