Ken Irvine – Freshwater Ecology Group, School of Natural Sciences, TCD

1. The value of biological data for decision making Ken Irvine – Freshwater Ecology Group, School of Natural Sciences, TCD

2. The Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) Set a framework for the comprehensive management of water resources within a common approach and with common objectives, principles and basic measures Reliance on biotic monitoring

3. Biological Indicators approach to determine Ecological Status

5. Long-term trends (2,900km baseline). A Unpolluted, B Slight Pollution, C Moderate Pollutionand D Seriously Polluted.Source EPA Channel length (%) 1971 1981 1986 1990 1994 1997 2000 Based on Q-values of river invertebrates

6. Q-values and water quality Seems fairly consistent since 1990 WFD monitoring-2006

7. Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) Recent emphasis for more focussed and improved monitoring by NPWS for aquatic sites Need to align objectives between Habitats and WFD1 White clawed crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes, Pearl mussel, Margaritifera margaritifera & M. durrovensis Salmon, Salmo salar Irvine, K. (2009). Harmonising assessment of conservation with that of ecological quality: Fitting a square peg into a round hole? Aq. Con. Mar. Fresh Sys 19: 365-369

8. Pearl mussel distribution Longest lived animal in Ireland, >100 years Pre 1970s 1970-1989 1990s 2005 Source: friendsoftheirishenvironment.net A protected species under the EU Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC)

9. Margaritifera margaritifera population structure WFD POMs Too little, too late? Larvae rely on passing salmon as temporary host Ref: E. A. Moorkens (1999) Conservation Management of the Freshwater Pearl Mussel Margaritifera margaritifera. Duchas, the Heritage Service, Dublin

10. Salmon Net benefit angling >€10 million p.a (2000) http://www.cfb.ie/pdf/CFBMIDAPRFI_17.pdf

11. Minister for Industry and Commerce, Patrick McGilligan, in 1925 White Paper on the Shannon Scheme "fishing interests will not be allowed to predominate against the greater interests of power production". 1920s Shannon fishery ca 100 nets worth annual income of £20000 THE BATTLE OF TAIL RACE (http://www.limerick.ie/media/Media,3936,en.pdf)

13. Estimated returns, spawners and conservation limits for Irish river. Source: ICES (2009)

14. Atlantic Salmon: Census returns of returning adult salmon to Burrishoole, Co Mayo .

16. Salmon-declining populations Farming Habitat restoration Drift Netting-now banned Article 17 Habitats Directive Report (2008) http://www.npws.ie/en/media/Media,6136,en.pdf

17. Other freshwater fish under pressure Killarney Shad, Alosa fallax killarnensis Pollan, Coregonus autumnalis Arctic Charr, Salvelinus alpinus Brook Lamprey, Lampetra planeri

18. Clear Need for biological data to support policies Ecological standards Howarth, W. (2006). The progress towards ecological Quality standards. J. Env Law. 18: 3-35. Species and habitat management Black-tailed skimmer, Lough Carra (courtesy L. Huxley; loughcarra.org)

19. Lough Carra SAC Ten species of Odonata1 Phragmites Cladium Chara Cobbles 2 Targeted monitoring of habitats needed 1Huxley & Irvine 2008. The Great Western Lakes: Ecology, Heritage and Management. 2McGoff. Invertebrate-habitat assoc. in the littoral and riparian ecotone of Lough Carra

20. Basic Considerations for Monitoring • Setting clear objectives (eg Habitats & WFD) • Temporal and Spatial effects • Taxonomic levels of identification • Quality Assurance • Consistency of methods • Trends and comparisons • Statistical analysis and need for replication. • Uncertainty • Further testing and development

21. Temporal and Spatial variability Chl a and TP White, J. & Irvine, K. (2003). Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Systems.13: 331-351.

22. Sampling effort required? Most species are rare Aquatic macrophytes in 570 (NILS) lakes Other algae, Potamogeton natans Elodea canadensis, Lema minor Nuphar lutea 85 % of species occur in less than 30 % of the lakes Source: Rippey & Dodkins

23. Interpreting the data and ecological complexity Ecosystems are dynamicwith temporal and spatial variability Biological metrics vary across environmental drivers. A common approach across elements is a significant challenge Return trajectory often different from original pressure response Scheffer, et al. (1993) TREE 8, 275-279

24. WFD classification tools (assessing dose-response relationships) have made substantial progress • Uses both multimetric and multivariate approach. • Individual “canaries” indicative of environmental change probably a naïve aspiration • Multiple pressures largely ignored or • lacking data • Still need for fundamental understanding

25. Verifying reference conditions remains a conceptual and analytical challenge. Reference is not, however, “Best available”

26. Research and communication to support monitoring Dedicated research to support policies and monitoring procedures Species distributions and ecology Pressure –response relationships Predictive models for impact and restoration Communicating results Scientists Policy makers Stakeholders

27. Managing large ecosystems should not rely merely on Science but on Civic Science; it should be irreducibly public in the way responsibilities are exercised, intrinsically technical, and open to learning from errors and profiting from successes1 Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler (Albert Einstein) 1Lee, K. (1993) Compass and Gyroscope: Integrating Science and Policy for the Environment. Island Press, New York

28. Conditions for civic science • Trust- needs connection, respect and inclusion in decisions • Representative interests-needs network of constituent interests • Inclusiveness-created by a successful process • Fairness-needs consensus and confidence in the process

29. Among stakeholders and citizens Inherent suspicion of Government and its agencies Requirement of a simple message Uncertainty equated to lack of understanding Debate confusing or polarised Imbalanced influence of vested or single interests Requires well considered and time-consuming internal and external communication process

30. Uncertainty in the data affects reliability of conclusions. • Data shortage-especially from the past • Model deficiencies • Indeterminate process: highly complex, chaotic or stochastic

31. Uncertainty Risk of misclassification No estimate of quality based on sampling will equal to the true value in the underlying population (except by a lucky chance). Because of this inevitable ‘sampling error’, estimated EQR for a quality element may differ from the class that would be obtained given perfect information for that location and time period. Ellis, J. (2006). Uncertainty estimation for monitoring results by the WFD biological classification tools. Science Report to the UK Environment Agency.

32. An example using European Fish Index Ellis (2006)

33. Unless stakeholders appreciate uncertainty in ecology they will haveunrealistic demands for certainty of model outputs Key challenge for ecological classification

34. Data provision Who holds the data? State agencies Universities Commercial interests Naturalists Who funds the data? Almost always the tax payer Mostly the tax payer The tax payer and industry Charities, agencies or no-one So, what is the problem with data availability?

35. Blocks to information provision Many and Varied-real and imagined • IT issues • Suspicion information will be misused • Concern about Quality Assurance • Protectionism and paranoia • Intellectual Property rights • Commercial interest (e.g. IPPC licensing; OSI) Ordnance Survey Material is supplied by permission of the Government (Permit Number 5953). Anyone wishing to reproduce Ordnance Survey Ireland material, or use it as a basis for their own publications, must obtain a licence from Ordnance Survey Ireland, for which a fee may be payable.

36. So how accessible is biotic data for water monitoring? Example 1: Queensland EPA http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/register/p02735bf.pdf Ecosystem Health Evaluation:– Tartrus Weir 18km 29th October 2009: Extensive suite of physiochemical data [NB TP of 0.2mg l-1 considered “mildly elevated”]. Invert Macroinvertebrate sampling (done quarterly) “An ecosystem health value has been assigned to the macroinvertebrate samples. According to SIGNAL 2.iv – A Scoring System for Macroinvertebrates (Water Bugs) in Australian Rivers (Chessman, 2003). The higher the SIGNAL 2 scores the better the ecosystem health. The signal score at this site was 4.0

37. http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/water/environment/default.asp Monitoring Victoria's freshwater environment. Since 1996 Review of Env. Water Quality Monitoring …. provision of Statewide database of water quality information on the internet. <5 minutes to get extensive data on water quality up to 10th June 2006 Response to a query within 24 hrs: Hello Kenneth, Thanks for your enquiry via the Victorian Water Resources Data Warehouse. Unfortunately we do not hold biological data on the VWRDW, however the EPA should be able to help you. I've been informed you will need to get in touch with Warwick Hoffman at the science labs at EPA Macleod, and he may be able to help you with this information. Best regards, Steve

38. Great Lakes Environmental Database(North America) http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/monitoring/data_proj/glenda/index.html Data that have not been verified through the Research Data Management and Quality Control System (RDMQ) or other verification protocols will be preliminary data. *Preliminary data may be released, upon request, by the Principal Investigators only. Verified Data After verification by the RDMQ system and approval by the Principal Investigator, the data are released to the LMMB modelers at EPA's Large Lakes Research Station. Validated Data After validation by the PI and modelers, data released on a request-by-request basis. If only a few datasets are requested, the data will be sent via e-mail. If several datasets are requested, a LMMB Data CD or large-capacity disk will be produced and mailed.

39. Data Request Form http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/lmmb/drform.html

40. Recent data In addition to the extensive historic data that are available…researchers are working to integrate the data … into an updated database. The eventual goal is to make this database web accessible for easy browsing and downloading. Please stay tuned for progress on this front

41. Irish EPA.http://www.epa.ie/whatwedo/wfd/monitoring/results/ Monitoring results: This section will contain links to the latest results from the Irish Water Framework Directive (WFD) monitoring programmes for the Rivers, Lakes, Groundwater, Transitional and Coastal Water monitoring programmes. The monitoring programme became operational on 22 December 2006. While not all datasets will be immediately available, we aim to provide links to datasets as soon as they are published. An electronic data exchange network will be used to speed up the flow of data and make it publicly available as soon as is feasible after the analyses are completed in the various laboratories around the country

42. Example of using information from projects for general use Eric Wienckowski (lakemapdata@gmail.com) Bathymetric surveys of natural lakes and release the database as a series of PDF files. Value: Estimating residence times Future sampling and survey Management and recreation

44. Conclusions • Biological data essential to support policies • Many, and often difficult questions about what, how and where data is collected • Wealth of information from agency and other sources • But, not always ready available, or easy to use • All publicly funded data should be publicly available • Communicating data and results can be time-consuming but an essential component of policy implementation (e.g Article 14 of WFD)