New approaches in determining the impacts of chemical pollution to protect the biodiversity of the Baltic Sea

Several anthropogenic pressures threaten Baltic Sea biodiversity, and chemical pollution is one of the main threats.

To achieve good environmental status (GES), the regulatory efforts, including the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), rely on ecological and chemical assessments.

However, the essential link between the chemical assessment (based on the contaminant concentrations) and ecological assessment (based on the community status) is the biological effect assessment of environmental contaminants, and this link is currently missing.

Moreover, the chemical assessment alone is insufficient for protecting wild populations because it considers only certain substances, thus neglecting other potentially harmful chemicals and the hazards related to contaminant mixtures.The D2P project will examine the relationships between chemical contamination and potential loss of functional biodiversity and provide tools for risk assessment in the Baltic Sea marine environment.

This will be achieved in two steps.

First collating existing monitoring data to examine the relationships between biodiversity, biological effects, and chemical data to produce and validate predictive modelling tools.

Second, demonstrate applicability of this approach in six representative areas in the Baltic as pilot sites to assess the usefulness of biological effect analysis in the holistic assessment of the Baltic Sea as a regulatory measure for biodiversity protection.