Annex A

Prioritising pressures for habitats in UK regions

To find out more about JNCC visit http://www.jncc.gov.uk/page-1729

Annex A

Title of project: / Prioritising pressures for habitats in UK regions
Date and time for return of tenders: / 12 December 2014 @ 1600 hours
Contract Reference No: / C14-0257-0894
Address for tender submission: / 1 electronic copy to be sent to:
or
or
(Please only pick one address)
PLEASE DO NOT SEND TENDERS DIRECTLY TO PENNY WILSON, DORA IANTOSCA OR GORDON GREEN VIA THEIR PERSONAL EMAIL ADDRESSES, AS THIS WILL INVALIDATE YOUR TENDER
Tender responses must be less than 10 MB in size.
On receipt of your tender, you will receive an automated e-mail to confirm receipt by JNCC Support Co. If you do not receive this automated email, please contact, in the following order:
Sue Wenlock (00 44 1733 866880)
Chris Downes (00 44 1733 866877)
Contacts for technical information relating to this project specification: / Penny Wilson
Marine Pressures Team
Joint Nature Conservation Committee
Email:
Tel: +44 (0)1733 866 887
Contact for any queries regarding the tendering procedure: / Dora Iantosca or Gordon Green
Finance Team
Joint Nature Conservation Committee
Email: or
Tel: 01733 866894 or 01733 866806
Proposed start-date: / As soon as possible upon awarding contract.
Proposed end-date: / March 2015

Contents

1. Joint Nature Conservation Committee 2

2. Project Aims 2

3. Project background 3

4. Project phases 5

5. Dissemination and data sharing 8

6. Milestones and Timescales 8

7. Financial constraints 9

8. Health and safety 9

9. Product specification 10

10. Project management 10

11. Instructions for tender submission 10

12. Evaluation Criteria 11

13. Payment 13

14. Additional Contractor requirements 13

15. References 13

Annex A 14

1.  Joint Nature Conservation Committee

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) is the statutory adviser tothe UK Government and devolved administrations on UKand international nature conservation. Its work contributes to maintaining and enriching biological diversity, conserving geological features and sustaining natural systems.

Our role is to provide evidence, information and advice so that decisions are made that protect natural resources and systems. Our specific role is to work on nature conservation issues that affect the UK as a whole and internationally:

·  advising Government on the development and implementation of policies for, or affecting, nature conservation in the UK and internationally;

·  providing advice and disseminate knowledge on nature conservation issues affecting the UK and internationally;

·  establishing common standards throughout the UK for nature conservation, including monitoring, research, and the analysis of results; and

·  commissioning or supporting research which it deems relevant to these functions.

Background to JNCC can be found on the JNCC webpages: http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/

2.  Project Aims

Develop and test a methodology/tool for identifying the most significant human pressures per habitat in each relevant UK marine region.

Using the methodology developed, for each habitat– produce a prioritised list of pressures for each region in which the habitat occurs. For example, for shallow sublittoral coarse sediments, the most important pressures in the Southern North Sea may be physical abrasion and extraction whereas for the same habitat type in the Northern North Sea, the most important pressures may be different. Therefore, each region should be tackled separately.

3.  Project background

Definition of terms/standard products to be used:
Habitats / The habitats under consideration in this contact are taken from the Rationalised list of habitats (Robson, 2014) and are shown below along with their corresponding EUNIS habitats:
Shallow Sublittoral Coarse Sediment / A5.11, A5.12, A5.13, A5.14
Shallow Sublittoral Mud / A5.31, A5.32, A5.33, 5.34,
A5.35, A5.36
Shallow Sublittoral Sand / A5.21, A5.22, A5.23, 5.24,
A5.25, A5.26
Shallow Sublittoral Mixed Sediment / A5.41, A5.42, A5.43, A5.44
Shelf Sublittoral Coarse Sediment / A5.15
Shelf Sublittoral Mud / A5.37
Shelf Sublittoral Sand / A5.27
Shelf Sublittoral Mixed Sediment / A5.45
High Energy Infralittoral Rock / A3.1
Moderate Energy Infralittoral Rock / A3.2
Low Energy Infralittoral Rock / A3.3
High Energy Circalittoral Rock / A4.1
Moderate Energy Circalittoral Rock / A4.2
Low Energy Circalittoral Rock / A4.3
Pressures / A defined list of pressures has been produced by the OSPAR Intersessional Correspondence Group on Cumulative Effects (ICG-C) (OSPAR, 2011), JNCC has modified this list slightly and this modified list should be used within this project (Annex A).
Pressures/activities matrix / JNCC will supply to the successful contractor a pressures/activities matrix which links activities to their associated pressures (JNCC, 2013), this should be used to help identify which pressures are present in each region.
Regions / For the purpose of this contract, the 11 Regional Seas defined in The HBDSEG Feeder report for Charting Progress 2 (DEFRA, 2010) will be used as the boundaries for the UK regional areas. Different habitats will occur in each region, and it is possible that the same habitat will occur in more than one region – in which the habitat should be considered separately for each region in which it occurs in e.g. Southern North Sea and Northern North Sea.
Sensitivity assessments / For the purpose of this project, sensitivity assessments should exclusively be used from the DEFRA contract MB0102 ‘Development of a sensitivity Matrix (pressures – MCZ/MPA features)’ (Tillin et al., 2010). All terminology associated with the sensitivity assessments should also follow the standard terminology used within Tillin et al (2010).
For the habitats listed above, their sensitivities will be composed of a number of features assessed in the MB0102 assessments and as a result are likely to have sensitivity ranges rather than a distinct sensitivity score. JNCC can provide a conversion table showing the corresponding MB0102 sensitivity assessments to each habitat listed above.

Coastal and marine ecosystems are subject to a number of human-induced pressures associated with a variety of marine activities and developments. JNCC plays a key role in developing our understanding of how these human activities and pressures interact with the marine environment. A pressure has been defined as “the mechanisms through which an activity has an effect on any part of the ecosystem” (Robinson et al., 2008), meaning that the same pressure can be caused by multiple activities, and a single activity can cause a number of pressures. The pressures/activities matrix supplied by JNCC indicates which pressures are caused by which activities.

JNCC have already prioritised the list of pressures at a national scale for all benthic habitats and is currently working to produce pressure maps for all national high and medium priority pressures. However, different pressures will be important for habitats at different spatial scales (i.e. national, regional, sites), for example a pressure which is only located in one region and only acting upon one habitat within the region, may not qualify as a nationally important pressure, however it could still be a regionally important pressure for the habitat.

Currently JNCC use spatial ‘vulnerability assessments’ to assess the vulnerability of a species or habitat to a particular anthropogenic pressure, however this assessment methodology was considered to be too time and resource intensive to be used to fulfil the aim of this contract. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, there are no pressure maps currently available for majority of the pressures – despite the fact that they are a key component of a vulnerability assessment.

A relatively quick, simple but ecologically meaningful methodology to prioritise pressures for each habitat for each region in which they occur is needed. The methodology needs to be adaptive and flexible enough to work with different available data sources and not preclude a pressure from consideration because a particular evidence source isn’t available – a decision tree approach could be applicable in order to achieve the required flexibility, however the contractor is encouraged to suggest alternative and innovative methodologies in the tender documents.

The lists of regionally prioritised pressures for the habitat types, produced as a result of this contract, will feed into various JNCC projects including the development of the UK Marine Biodiversity Monitoring R&D Programme. In the future the methodology developed within this contract might be applied at different scales i.e. to prioritise pressures per national habitat or per sub-regional habitat etc.

4.  Project phases

JNCC wishes to receive tenders for all phases and deliverables detailed in this specification document. Each phase will be followed by a checkpoint review where written consent must be obtained from the Contract Officer before work can commence on the next phase of work. The next phase must not proceed until this review has been conducted and approval obtained in writing from the Contract Officer. JNCC will not be liable for any work conducted on further phases of work without prior written approval by the Contract Officer. Proceeding to the next phase will be dependent upon funding being available and upon the work being delivered to acceptable timescales and quality within those timescales. JNCC reserves the right to terminate the contract at any time should funding not be available or should an agreement on acceptable timetables not be reached. Any flexibility in costs and timescales must be agreed in writing by the Contract Officer prior to the start of each phase.

To meet the overall aim of this project (Section 2), the objectives are split into the following phases:

Phase 1: Develop a methodology/tool for identifying the most significant human pressures per habitat per UK region

The successful contractor will be tasked with developing a methodology for prioritising all pressures for each habitat type within each relevant UK marine region. JNCC is flexible with the final approach taken, but would ask for the following factors to be given consideration:

·  Available data sources - the methodology needs to be applicable to all pressures and therefore a variety of evidence sources should be taken into consideration, including, but not limited to spatial and expert judgement.

·  Consideration of the associated confidence in the results – and how the confidence will change dependent on the available evidence sources.

·  Consideration of the sensitivity of the habitat type to the particular pressures (from the MB0102 sensitivity assessments)

·  Consideration of the spatial footprint and intensity of the pressure in the area; this may include temporal variability considerations

·  The methodology should be relatively simple and quick to run allowing JNCC staff to replicate the prioritisation should new information become available.

·  How to present the prioritised list. The presentation of the prioritised list needs to reflect the overall objective to narrow down the most important pressures per habitat per region.

·  Consideration needs to be given to how the different prioritised lists can be comparable. i.e. if ranking the pressures in terms of high, medium or low priority; then a ‘high’ priority pressure for one habitat/region should be on a comparable scale to a ‘high’ priority pressures from a different habitat/region.

JNCC would also welcome the contractor to suggest any other considerations / methods / thresholds that will help meet the objectives.

Deliverables: A report detailing the prioritisation methodology. This should include details on the different data sources available for use within the method as well as how the different sources will affect the confidence score for each pressure for each habitat. The report should provide the reader with enough detail that they would feel confident in undertaking the methodology independently.

Each component of the methodology should be described and justified, with full references, the report should be in the JNCC report template with a maximum length of 20 pages (excluding appendices and annexes), and it should be written in a style that is accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Phase 2: Test the methodology developed in Phase 1 by prioritising pressures per region for one of the habitats identified by JNCC.

In discussions with JNCC, one habitat from the list provided should be chosen to test the methodology.

This should be used as an opportunity to identify and highlight any weaknesses in the methodology.

Any regions where the chosen habitat does not occur can be removed from consideration, as well as any pressures that are known not to occur on the habitat (in each region). Available evidence should be collected and then using the methodology identified in objective 1 all relevant pressures should be prioritised for each region the habitat occurs within.

Deliverables: This testing phase should be fully detailed as a separate chapter in the report, including details of the data sources used/ data sources not considered appropriate – accompanied with a short justification.

Any recommendations and changes to the methodology as a result of the testing process should be recorded and made clear in the report.

The prioritised lists of pressures for the particular habitat type should be presented under a heading of the habitat, then as a sub-heading each region the habitat occurs within, with the list of prioritised pressures listed under each region.

Details of the confidence behind the prioritisation of each pressure should also be made clear, ideally in a structure mirroring the one described above, but with confidence information presented.

Phase 3: Test any assumptions and thresholds used within the methodology

Any threshold values (e.g. spatial overlap thresholds etc) and assumptions within the methodology should be tested, by varying the values/assumption and recording the impact that these variations have on the overall prioritisation process/outputs. This will ensure that the limitations and assumptions inherent within the methodology are fully understood.

Deliverables:

Results of the testing phase should be fully detailed and recorded within a separate section of the report. The results of the testing should be clearly presented under separate headings for each assumption/value that is being manipulated. As a result of this process, recommendations and changes should be made to the final methodology if necessary.

Phase 4: Produce prioritised pressures per region for remaining habitats.

Following the methodology developed, prioritise pressures per region for the remaining habitats, providing a clear and referenced audit trail for each prioritisation process. The final prioritised lists should be presented as described in phase 2.