An EU co-funded project “HELCOM Biodiversity, Litter, Underwater noise and Effective regional measures for the Baltic Sea” (BLUES).
The HELCOM BLUES project aimed to support development of regionally coordinated measures and assessments of the state of the Baltic Sea in relation to relevant pressures affecting the sea. It notably supported the HELCOM’s Holistic Assessment of the Baltic Sea (HOLAS III) for the period 2016-2021 by providing improved assessment results, for instance by improving the capacity for biodiversity reporting and assessment and the assessment of marine litter and underwater noise, as well as by establishing closer links between the state of the marine environment and human well-being.
Funded by: European Union grant.
Grant agreement number: 110661/2020/839624/SUB/ENV.C.2.
Project implementation time: from January 2021 to January 2023.
Project website: https://blues.helcom.fi/.
Based on the sub-contract with the coordinating partner HELCOM secretariat, AKTiiVS (Kristīne Pakalniete) was involved in the project’s Activity 1 “Analyses to support effective regional measures and policies” for contributing into development of methodologies and assessments for the regional economic and social analysis for the Baltic Sea region according to the EU MSFD and HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan needs, including for the HELCOM HOLAS III assessment.
The work addressed relevant elements of the economic and social analysis (ESA) for the sea region, such as:
- improving the information base on effectiveness and costs of regionally coordinated measures,
- improving the assessment approach and information base on the sea region benefit estimates of achieving good environmental status,
- preparing the sea region assessments on economic and social analysis of the use of marine waters and the cost of degradation,
- developing the sea region socioeconomic assessment of the marine ecosystem services.
© Photo: K. Pakalniete.
The results are summarised in the BLUES project’s deliverables and have been included in the HOLAS III Thematic assessment of economic and social analyses.
Relevant references:
HELCOM (2023) HELCOM Thematic assessment of economic and social analyses 2016-2021. Baltic Sea Environment Proceedings No. 188. Available here.
HELCOM BLUES (2022) Database on costs of measures for improving state of the marine environment. Available here.
HELCOM BLUES (2022) Database of valuation studies for the Baltic Sea on benefits of improving state of the marine environment. Available here.
HELCOM BLUES (2023) Socioeconomic assessment of the Baltic Sea marine ecosystem services for assessing well-being impacts of marine protection and management policies. Report of the HELCOM BLUES project. Available here.