Background information:
This survey was developed at the request of UNEP and IOC/UNESCO, as the lead agencies responsible for taking forward the "Assessment of Assessments" through the implementation of UNGA Resolution 60/30.
The survey is a collaboration of UNEP-WCMC, UNEP, and IOC/UNESCO which builds on the 2003 "Global Marine Assessments: A survey of global and regional marine environmental assessments and related scientific activities" to provide an understanding of global and regional assessments and other scientific activities in the marine environment and the processes for undertaking these activities, as of October 2006.
This database contains information on 421 activities at present, including assessments, scientific research studies of relevence and data holdings. It allows the user to search by catagory of assessment, by title or by keyword and access details of the processes, timelines and outputs, with links where available to access online information.
Definition of the 21 Regions for the Assessment of Assessment Process, was agreed at the First Meeting of the Group of Experts, March 2007.
'Open Ocean'
Where the water depth exceeds 200m around the boundaries of the major continental land masses. This definition excludes the marginal enclosed and semi-enclosed seas, but includes all ocean regions bordering lesser island systems regardless of water depth.
Objective:
The primary objective of the survey, is to support the Group of Experts charged with carrying out the "Assessment of Assessments".
This database in conjunction with a report is designed to:
- Provide information on a range of assessments as well as research activities, monitoring and data collection activities that may be able to contribute to a regular assessment
- Identify assessments for further analysis in the Assessment of Assessments that could contribute to the regular process
- Enable the regular process to benefit from the lessons learned by other assessments in terms of process and outcomes
Your contribution:
If you would like to contribute information to this database please contact us at grame@unep-wcmc.org or complete and submit an online form for the assessment you would like to include.
Limitations of the Survey:
While the survey aims to be a comprehensive as possible, the coverage of assessments and related activities is not exhaustive. The focus of the survey is on activities and related scientific activities (that is research projects, monitoring projects and data holdings) at the regional and global scale, using a limited number of national level assessments for which could provide the Group of Experts with particular lessons or information on process or outputs.
The catagorisation of information gathered has a degree of subjectivity. Value judgements were unavoidably included in several fields of the database, including the classification of activities as assessment or other types, the role of experts and thematic focus of the activity. This was minimised through use of consensus of the research team and expert review group. The complexity of the assessment processes examined was difficult to capture in the identified thematic categories and may have resulted in a degree of simplification of thematic coverage. There are also limitations regarding the geographic coverage component field within the database. Efforts were made to minimise subjectivity of the researchers by ensuring regular communication and development of standard definitions.
This process has highlighted the limitations of using web based operations to gather information on and for assessments. These include the absence on the internet of information that may be available in hard copy only, the fact that web sites are not updated in a timely fashion and often not at all after projects are completed, and some of the information is open to subjective interpretation. The importance of ground-truthing of the web based information would appear critical to the success of the AoA and RP activities. A proposal for this validation is included.
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