At regional level, indicators can assist in the process of harmonizing strategies for management of transboundary and straddling resources and for measuring the overall health of large-scale marine ecosystems. The ultimate goal is that of establishing a multidisciplinary reference system for the sustainable development of fisheries, which should be able to constitute an effective framework contributing to address and overcome the constraints affecting the current Mediterranean fishery management systems. The practical purpose of indicators is that, as it is dealt with in the AdriaMed context, to assist in the process of assessing the performance of fisheries policies and management at regional, national and sub-national levels.

AdriaMed experts agree on the following key-criteria and properties of indicators:

1. Indicators must be scientifically valid in the sense that, according to our best scientific understanding, they are indicative of the objective they are intended to reflect and utilize the “best scientific information available”;

2. Indicators should be feasible and cost-effective in terms of their information collection demands;

3. Indicators should be easily understood.

Work has been undertaken to make a first suite of indicators available for the fisheries of a set of key-reference species and multispecies assemblage in GSA 17 and 18. Tentatively, a total of twenty-three selected indicators (thirteen for single species and ten for multispecies group) have been identified and their performance is being tested.

N.A.