Key Scottish Environment Statistics 2014

Marine

Compliance with the EC Bathing Water Directive (76/160/EEC): 1988-2013

Percentage compliance of coastal bathing waters^[1]

High quality coastal bathing waters are important for encouraging the use of the outdoors by people in Scotland and promoting Scotland as a tourist destination. The quality of these bathing waters in Scotland is consistently high, but health risks can exist if high concentrations of faecal bacteria are present in the water. This can happen if heavy rain run-off in urban areas and fields causes contaminants to enter the water. Monitoring the quality of these waters is a high priority to protect public health.

EC Bathing Water Directive (76/160/EEC) sets out two quality standards - the 'mandatory' standard, and the stricter 'guideline' standard. Member states should comply with the mandatory standard and aim to comply with the guideline standard. In 2013 all of Scotland's bathing waters met the mandatory standard, with 59% exceeding this and achieving the guideline standard.

Weather can have a large effect on the results of this dataset. Particularly wet years leads to more run-off which results in more sites failing to meet the standards, while drier weather often results in better compliance. However, there is a general trend of more sites reaching the mandatory standard in recent years.

From 2015, bathing water will be assessed by a new standard on bathing water quality, based on an assessment over four years.

Source: Scottish Environment Protection Agency / Metadata

Selected Commercial Fish Stocks^R,[2],[3]: 1960-2014

Spawning Stock Biomass (SSB) (thousand tonnes)

The ecosystem of the seas around Scotland supports fisheries for commercially important species. If stocks are in a poor state or overfished it can have a knock-on effect on other parts of the marine ecosystem. Likewise, changes in the wider marine environment can have an impact on the state of the stock^[4]. The state of commercial fish stocks may be considered, alongside other indicators, as a proxy for the general sustainability of the marine environment. One measure of the state of a fish stock is the size of its spawning stock biomass (SSB).^[5] The health of the fish stock can then be indicated by comparing the SSB with a precautionary value, or reference point (Bpa).^[6]

The SSB of North Sea cod stock has been below Bpa since 1984. The SSB has increased each year since historical lows in 2006, in spite of continued low recruitment, but the value of 69 kt in 2014 is still well below the Bpa of 150 kt. The SSB of haddock was above the previously-determined value for Bpa of 140 kt from 2002 - 2005. The value has since decreased to 173 kt in 2014 but still remains above trigger levels^[7]. The SSB of herring stocks has been above the Bpa of 1,300 kt since 1996. Since falling to 1,476 kt in 2007, it rose to 2,476 kt in 2012 before declining again to 1,903 kt by 2014. The SSB of the North Sea/West of Scotland saithe saw a 20 year decline in SSB levels between 1970s - 1990s. SSB then increased up to 2005 but has been declining since then to levels slightly below the Bpa of 200 kt for the last three years, with an estimated SSB of 189 kt in 2014.

A range of management measures are applied to fishing activity in Scotland, with the aim of achieving or maintaining healthy stock levels.^[8]

Source: Marine Scotland Science / ICES / Metadata