MEDIN Position Paper – Social and Economic Data
Dan Lear (MBA), Nicola Beaumont (PML), & Justine Saunders (EMU Ltd)
1. Introduction and Objective
The focus on marine data management has historically been on environmental data. Large EU
data initiatives such a SeaDataNet and EMODNet have, until recently, largely ignored marine
social and economic data. However, many of the challenges faced in data management are
common to all disciplines, relating to effective description of the data, availability, format and
exchange.
The shortfalls in social and economic data management in the UK were highlighted as part of
the collation of information for the Charting Progress 2 report in 2010. Following the
recommendations of CP2, the MMO and Marine Scotland commissioned a review of social and
economic data in 2012 (MMO and Marine Scotland, 2012), carried out by EMU Ltd, the MBA &
PML, which made six recommendations (included as annex 1).In Section 2 we summarise the
recommendations, provide an update of progress, and identify next steps. We then describe
linkages with European projects, and finally conclude with the key messages.
2. Update and refinement of recommendations
Recommendation 1 – Develop and promote a detailed action plan for marine social and
economic data
Progress to date
The development of an 'Action Plan' for social and economic data was recommended and 5yearly review was proposed to assess data gaps and the overall suitability of current datasets to
meet the requirements for effective management.
No detailed, shared Action Plan has been produced, however work has been ongoing
independently within MMO and MS. The development of a single, authoritative and
comprehensive document is critical for a co-ordinated approach to the effective management of
social and economic data.
Future action required
This Position Paper could form the basis of an overarching Action Plan and could build and
report on progress against the original recommendations (MMO and Marine Scotland, 2012),
and ensure co-ordination across MEDIN, PSEG and the MSCC.
Led by Marine Scotland and the MMO and co-ordinated by MEDIN or PSEG the 'Action Plan'
would provide a framework to highlight best practice, reduce duplication of effort and provide a
focal point for the marine social and economic data community.
The review and update should be a continuous process, reflecting recent research, newly
mobilised data and the changing legislative framework. The Action Plan can then act as a source
of current knowledge for revisions of summaries such as Charting Progress and the Scottish
Marine Atlas, would provide greater focus and coherence, and ensure timescales were adhered
to.
Recommendation 2 - Improve communication between academics and marine managers
Progress to date
As recommended the Marine Science Co-ordination Committee (MSCC) has established the
Marine Ripple Effect news feed to communicate marine science across a range of stakeholders1.
Marine Ripple Effect has a Twitter account (@MarineRipple) and as of November 2013, has 290
followers.
More targeted communications take place through established (non-marine specific) groups
such as the Environmental Observations Framework (EOF2) and the Valuing Nature Network3,
with peer-reviewed papers highlighting the current situation, and providing greater visibility to
data management issues within the social and economic sector. (Beaumont, et al., under
review). Given that social and economic activities transcend and impact across terrestrial,
marine, freshwater and transitional environments, improved communication between the
terrestrial and marine sectors is critical.
The UK-EOF workshop in 20104 recommended:
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Building a Community of Practice through a 'user network' to facilitate communication
between users of specific datasets
Encouraging face-to-face activity between scientists; in particular, holding workshops or
group sessions in which environmental datasets held within the UK-EOF Observation
Activity catalogue can be discussed by social and natural scientists (and vice-versa),
along with an explanation of their potential use and how the data can be accessed
The specific role of UK-EOF in facilitating collaboration by providing an information
infrastructure
Incorporating socio-economic metadata into the UK-EOF Observation Activity Catalogue
and making the appropriate links to relevant data repositories or hubs, so that there is
one place in which data sources can be discovered
Writing guidance which may help users to understand the scientific value of joining
socioeconomic and environmental data, provide examples of the analyses and
applications, as well as direction to where social, economic and environmental datasets
can be found. Potential limitations and considerations should also be included
Following the UK-EOF workshop the following activities have taken place;
1.
EOF have added the term ‘social and economic’ to the UKEOF Catalogue
(http://catalogue.ukeof.org.uk/catalogue/ ) . There are currently 78 records under the
‘social and economic’ search term, however these are both terrestrial and marine.
2.
EOF have developed a document that has links to other useful socio economic
information sources which are outside of the UKEOF remit but may provide supporting
1
http://www.defra.gov.uk/mscc/files/MaRE.pdf
http://www.ukeof.org.uk/
3 http://www.valuing-nature.net/
4 http://www.ukeof.org.uk/documents/20101117_UKEOF_Socioeconomic_Workshop_Final_Report.pdf
2
or additional evidence when addressing key questions and issues
(http://www.ukeof.org.uk/documents/20110513ukeofsocialandeconomicinfolinks.pdf ).
Future action required
The Productive Seas Evidence Group provides a good example of the mechanisms for ensuring
good communication between the scientific, policy making and management sectors. However
as social and economic datasets often transcend the marine, freshwater and terrestrial domains,
greater communication across these areas is required. UK-EOF can provide a co-ordinating role,
however marine representation, through MEDIN, is recommended.
Recommendation 3 - Improve data management and access
Progress to date
The delivery of data within the MEDIN partnership is undertaken by a series of thematic,
accredited Data Archive Centres, however the is no current MEDIN DAC for social and economic
data.
MEDIN is not in the position to support the creation of a new DAC dedicated to the
management of social and economic data. Data centres already exist, including the Office for
National Statistics (ONS) and the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS), in addition to portals
collating social and economic studies and valuation data, such as the Environmental Valuation
Reference inventory (EVRI) and the Marine Ecosystem Services Partnership (MESP).
The Marine Assessment and Reporting Group (MARG) Pressures Steering Group has helped to
support some of the recommendations proposed in the original review and supported and
further developed the adoption of the keywords (mentioned below). In addition the group are
planning to build a combined catalogue for activities data, initially based on the relevant
contents of The Crown Estate’s Marine Data Exchange, the MMO’s Master Data Register, and
relevant data from the EA, NRW, SEPA and NE.
Future action required
Further discussions are required with ONS and ESDS, through MEDIN, to explore the archiving
and dissemination of social and economic data specific to the marine environment and in a
format to better support decision-making around marine issues. MEDIN is best placed to
undertake a co-ordinating role in the discussions, and provide a lead on the establishment of
guidelines and standards to bring greater coherence and increased visibility of marine social and
economic data.
MEDIN should continue strong involvement in the MARG Pressures Steering Group to ensure
coordination across relevant organisations.
Recommendation 4 - Develop and promote metadata guidelines and standards.
Progress to date
Recent work funded by the MMO has led to the development of a MEDIN-approved guideline
for recreation data - http://www.marinemanagement.org.uk/evidence/documents/1043-
datasupply.pdf .
Further guidelines will be developed as required, and approved by the MEDIN Standards
Working Group.
Future action required
Closer linkages with the organisations identified in Recommendation 3 (especially ONS and ESDS)
will ensure the adherence to existing, terrestrial-focussed standards for social and economic
data. Where necessary the MEDIN Standards Working Group can provide a forum for the
development of marine-specific additions to existing standards.
Enhancements to the quality of metadata are intrinsically linked to Recommendation 5.
Recommendation 5 - Develop a set of keywords for marine social and economic data.
Progress to date
The effective discovery of data depends upon the data being well described, which is achieved
through each dataset having a corresponding metadata file. The MEDIN Discovery Metadata
Standard uses keywords from the BODC Parameter Dictionary which until recently didn't include
keywords relating to social and economic data.
The development of keywords for social and economic data has been progressed through the
Interreg-funded VALMER project5. The MBA Data Team (DASSH) have led the publication of
vocabularies for “Social and Economic Governance Objectives”
(http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/M05/current/) and “Monitoring Activity Categories”
(http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/M06/current/).
Further vocabularies are in development including terms and definitions for Ecosystem Services,
and Ecosystem Service Assessment Methodologies.
These terms are assessed and reviewed by the MEDIN Standards Working Group, alongside the
wider community, including the UKMMAS Evidence Groups and the OSPAR Pressures and
Impacts group, to ensure alignment with work taking place for MSFD implementation.
Once agreed the keyword terms and corresponding definitions are loaded in the BODC
Parameter Dictionary and integrated into the SeaDataNet infrastructure, and therefore
integrated into the EU marine data infrastructure that initiatives such as EMODnet utilise.
Future action required
The ESDS use the HASSET (Humanities & Social Science Electronic Thesaurus6) and through the
liaison identified in Recommendation 3, the HASSET vocab could be integrated with established
term-lists to improve co-ordination and increase interoperability.
Once published the keywords need to be integrated into the MEDIN tools for metadata creation
5
6
http://www.valmer.eu
http://data-archive.ac.uk/find/hasset-thesaurus
and management, and existing metadata reviewed to integrate the newly available terms. The
update and republication of metadata records can take significant time and resources will need
to be identified in order to retrospectively edit the records.
Recommendation 6 - Address gaps in marine social and economic metadata and data.
Progress to date
Recent MMO projects (as listed in the online MMO Evidence Projects Register7) have further
developed the social and economic metadata catalogue with additional datasets and by refining
existing entries.
Recent PSEG papers (PSEG 23_05 and PSEG 23_08) on current social and economic research
projects and the current and future requirements social and economic assessments are
excellent examples of the essential coordination mechanisms that PSEG provides. Through
continued liaison between policy makers, regulatory bodies, statutory agencies, academics and
MEDIN it will be possible to ensure the highest quality social and economic data and evidence
are available to underpin future assessments, monitoring and legislation.
Future action required
Closer engagement with ONS and ESDS, as identified in the previous sections will provide a
clearer picture of existing gaps. Work is underway to explore specific, marine-relevant statistics
from the ONS, however it is essential these data are visible, properly described and freely
available.
The reporting requirements for MSFD and its national implementations will provide additional
mechanisms for the identification of gaps, and the subsequent prioritisation.
The UKMMAS evidence groups, primarily PSEG, should be encouraged to continue liaison with
MEDIN to ensure the catalogue of key social and economic data is maintained and updated, and
the future data requirements are understood and planned for.
3. European linkages
Phase 2 of EMODnet (starting September 2013) includes a thematic workstream on ‘Human
Activities’ and is led by Italian management consultant Cogea8. Table 1 demonstrates the type
of data being collected across the partnership.
Activity
Type/form
at
Attribute
cultural heritage
Points
e.g. underwater stone age settlements etc.
mariculture
point
species of fish and shellfish; production
tonnage per year
gravel extracted per year, area of activity
aggregate extraction
point (may also include
polygon)
7 http://www.marinemanagement.org.uk/evidence/documents/evidenceregister.pdf
8 www.cogea.it
dredging (e.g. navigational)
polygons
ocean energy facility
other forms of area
management/designation
waste disposal (solids,
including dredge material,
dumped munitions, marine
constructions
wind-farms
fisheries zones
point
polygons
polygons or points
point (may also include
polygon)
polygons
hydrocarbon extraction
pipelines and cables
protected areas
commercial shipping,
recreational shipping
major ports
Status (years operational), purpose
type (tide, wave, thermal gradient etc),
status (planned, under construction,
operational)
National or international formal basis
Status (years operational)
number of turbines, generation capacity,
status (planned, under construction,
operational)
ICES and FAO nomenclature
point
status (exploration, exploitation)
line
types of cable or pipeline, width
point (may also include
polygon)
grid
point
legal basis for protection
average number of vessels per year within
a grid cell
Traffic
Table 1. Remit for EMODnet Biology Human Activities lot.
Increased liaison at the EU Level is key to sea area based management, and the adoption of
common data standards and methodologies will become increasingly important.
4. Conclusions
There has been limited progress against the recommendations of the original review. Table 2,
below, provides the required next steps.
Recommendations
Develop and promote a
detailed action plan for
marine social and
economic data
Improve communication
between academics and
marine managers
Improve data management
and access
Develop and promote
metadata guidelines and
standards
Develop a set of keywords
for marine social and
economic data
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Actions
Establish working group of MEDIN or PSEG
Develop action plan based on this position paper
Ensure cross ecosystem
(marine/freshwater/terrestrial) communication
through improved engagement with UK-EOF
Initiate dialogue with ONS and ESDS

Promote standards and guidelines with relevant
organisations, especially ONS and ESDS

Investigate integration of the HASSET vocab within
the MEDIN metadata standard
Review and update existing social and economic
metadata records to ensure new terms are
integrated

Address gaps in marine
social and economic
metadata and data
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
Ensure closer engagement with ONS and ESDS
Encourage updates to relevant metadata though
the UKMMAS Evidence Groups
Table 2. Summary of recommendations and actions
The further development of all these recommendations requires co-ordination and leadership,
with each recommendation being assigned a lead organisation or individual 'champion'. Whilst
there are insufficient resources within MEDIN to establish and operate a dedicated Social and
Economic DAC, better coordination of existing expertise could deliver significant benefits. The
establishment of an operational and ongoing ‘Action Plan’, owned, updated and managed by a
MEDIN Working Group for Social and Economic Data would ensure continuing communication
and provide a definitive source of information and guidance for the required next steps.
Whilst it is not place of this position paper to progress existing actions, we do strongly advise the
initiation of a small group to take ownership of the recommendations, either a working group of
MEDIN or PSEG would be most appropriate. This position paper aims to form the basis of a
future ‘Action Plan’, which could be taken forward by the proposed working group.
References
MMO and Marine Scotland (2012) A review of marine social and economic data. A report
produced for the Marine Management Organisation and Marine Scotland, pp 42. MMO Project
No: 1012. ISBN: 978-1-909452-01-5.
Beaumont, N.J., Saunders, J., Atkins, J., Hanley, N., Hume, D., Lannin, A., Lear, D., Luisetti, T.,
Ozdemiroglu, E., Potts, T. A review of marine social and economic data: creation, curation, and
application. Under Review, Marine Pollution Bulletin