Ecological monitoring and assessment in South East Ports

In accordance with the goals of ECOPORT 8 – Environmental Management Of Transborder Corridor Ports an ecological monitoring plan aims to observe the environmental status of the port in order to measure progress in environmental port practices. The need to implement environmental monitoring for ports arises from the fact that in recent years we have witnessed an increase in European directives and national laws imposing rules to make ports more responsible and encouraging their sustainable development. The first step to set the monitoring plan is the “environmental assessment” (EA), a mechanism by which the ecological and other environmental consequences of port activities (or proposed port development) are estimated and therefore recommendations are provided to decision makers in order to reduce or avoid impacts. The information and analysis generated in EA provide the basis for decision on how to set the monitoring plan, in terms of environmental matrices, parameters and procedures used for monitoring.