ICES Ecosystem Overviews Technical Guidelines

Ecosystem overviews are key products in ICES approach to supporting ecosystem-based management (EBM). The overviews complement other types of advice, providing supporting context and allowing users to understand the implications of sectoral decisions and impacts in an ecosystem context. They are not meant to be catalogues of all available information on an ecoregion but provide science-based statements supported by quantitative (where possible) and qualitative data (where appropriate), that are of use to ICES advice requesters, stakeholders, and regional managers. The overviews are intended to advance the delivery of integrated ecosystem-informed advice, taking account of the effects of multiple human pressures on the environment and the most influential environmental and ecosystem processes, while considering multiple objectives.

The ecosystem overviews are based on the best available information and are developed through a set of workshops and/or by ICES integrated ecosystem assessment (IEA) groups, with contributions from other relevant expert groups (EGs) using automated data products and spatial data layers from accepted legitimate sources. The overviews are completed by an advice drafting group (ADG) and approved by ICES Advisory Committee (ACOM). 

The ecosystem overviews are included in a number of cooperative agreements that ICES has with national agencies and international organizations and commissions; they also reach a broader audience of the scientific community, including ICES network. Given this broad audience, the overviews evolve through both top-down processes (advisory requests and decisions about strategic direction) and bottom-up processes (information streams highlighting “new” science products from ICES network).