Scoping Workshop – How can we set thresholds for seafloor health that are both scientifically credible and practically usable?

As pressures on our marine environments intensify, there is a growing need for thresholds that can guide decision-making and support the achievement of Good Environmental Status (GES) under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). At the request of the EU (DG ENV), ICES is advancing technical work on threshold-setting for seafloor condition indicators (D6C3 and D6C5). Input from the scientific community is essential to ensure these thresholds are scientifically robust, operational, and applicable across diverse management contexts.

WKD6SCOPE is a scoping workshop aimed at presenting, compiling, and documenting expert input on current threshold-setting methods, their practical use, and key knowledge gaps. It will bring together a broad range of perspectives to explore what makes thresholds usable, how uncertainty and risk are managed, and what is needed to support implementation across different regions, habitats, and pressure types.

The workshop also welcomes contributions from managers, spatial planners, policymakers, regional sea conventions, and competent authorities to explore what makes a threshold operation and acceptable, considering both scientific robustness and policy relevance.