Working Group on Resilience and Marine Ecosystem Services (WGRMES; outputs from 2023 meeting)

Correction (20/2/2025): Update of Volume and Issue number

The Working Group on Resilience and Marine Ecosystem Services (WGRMES) is focused on promoting scientific cooperation for the maintenance of ecosystem services and social-ecological systems, ensuring the welfare of both present and future generations. WGRMES has been promoting and conducting assessments of marine ecosystem services (MES), evaluating changes in marine ecosystems in terms of values and/indicators through specific valuation tools. These values can be used for integrated assessments, fisheries management and trade-offs analysis. WGRMES work is linked to the following ICES Science Plan priorities areas: Ecosystem science; Impacts of human activities; Conservation and management science; Sea and Society. WGRMES assists the scientific community, stakeholders, and Member States to understand how policies, plans and programs affect multiple ecosystem services and different management objectives by guiding a selection of the best alternatives.

The key activities of WGRMES during this ToRs cycle have advanced our understanding of quantifying the resilience of marine ecosystems and fisheries. This progress has been achieved through the development and refinement of the methodologies to account for different aspects of resilience, including: 1) indicator-based climate change assessments on marine fisheries; 2) identification of tipping points and regime shift and; 3) management and policy-related pathways for resilience in marine ecosystems and fishery.

WGRMES has also highlighted the importance of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in providing Marine Ecosystem Services (MES) to improve human health, well-being and equity (Villasante et al., 2023). This effort is In conjunction with the ICES Working Group on Marine Protected Areas and other Spatial Conservation Measures (WGMPAS)​​​​​​​​​​​​; and by providing information on the multidimensional valuation of Marine Ecosystem Services (MES) as a contribution to the ICES Working Group on Economica (WGECON), (Murillas-Maza et al., 2023). WGRMES has also developed an Ocean’s Benefit to People (OBP) framework aiming to link the IPBES Nature’s Contribution to People (NCP) conceptual framework with the blue economy, equity and the UN SDGs, promoting EBM approach for ocean sustainability and ocean governance/equity. WGRMES members have chaired and contributed to the ICES Workshop on ASsessing CAPacity to supply Ecosystem Services (WKASCAPES), advocating for the inclusion of information of MES in the ICES advice on Ecosystem Overview. WGRMES future works aims to continue to document resilience of MES; to review and document multidimensional valuation of MES; to document and analyse transformative changes in marine social-ecological services; to evaluate and document MES across different ecosystems, ECOregions and case studies in Europe and beyond; and to actively support the initiatives with the ICES Human Dimension Steering Group (HUDISG).