All HELCOM Contracting Parties aim for common indicators for the marine environment

New round kicks off to jointly assess the entire Baltic

15 January 2014, Berlin, Germany – An expert workshop today kicks off the second round of HELCOM work on core indicators, which measure the state of and pressures affecting the Baltic Sea environment. The workshop is organized by the recently started HELCOM CORESET II project (2013–2015) that has the objective of operationalizing the first mutually agreed core indicators for biodiversity, hazardous substances and eutrophication, and to possibly develop additional ones.

HELCOM, involving all Baltic coastal countries and EU as its Contracting Parties as well as an extensive specialist expert and observer network, has long experience in indicator development. HELCOM core indicators are common for all Contracting Parties and can be used to assess the state of the whole Baltic Sea ecosystem, including its flora, fauna and habitats, as well as pressures affecting the Sea such as hazardous substances like PCB and radioactive substances.


Core indicators analyze data from environmental monitoring and measure the environment’s state against a target or boundary value for good environmental status (GES). They are also a prerequisite for comparing monitoring data and assessment results across the entire Baltic Sea region. Such indicators enable assessments of whether the objectives of HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan are being met, and, for the countries being EU members, also the requirements of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive.