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This manuscript is a result of DEVOTES (DEVelopment Of innovative Tools for understanding marine biodiversity and assessing good Environmental Status) project, funded by the European Union under the 7th Framework Programme, 'The Ocean of Tomorrow' Theme (grant agreement no. 308392), www.devotes-project.eu. María C. Uyarra is partially funded through the Spanish programme for Talent and Employability in R + D + I "Torres Quevedo". Melanie Austen and Stefanie Broszeit are partially funded by the Marine Ecosystems Research Programme, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) (grant number NE/L003279/1). ; The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requires Member States to assess the costs and benefits of Programmes of Measures (PoMs) put in place to ensure that European marine waters achieve Good Environmental Status by 2020. An interdisciplinary approach is needed to carry out such an assessment whereby economic analysis is used to evaluate the outputs from ecological analysis that determines the expected effects of such management measures. This paper applies and tests an existing six-step approach to assess costs and benefits of management measures with potential to support the overall goal of the MSFD and discusses a range of ecological and economic analytical tools applicable to this task. Environmental cost-benefit analyses are considered for selected PoMs in three European case studies: Baltic Sea (Finland), East Coast Marine Plan area (UK) and the Bay of Biscay (Spain). These contrasting case studies are used to investigate the application of environmental cost-benefit analysis including the challenges, opportunities and lessons learnt from using this approach. This paper demonstrates that there are opportunities in applying the six-step environmental cost-benefit analysis framework presented to assess the impact of PoMs. However, given demonstrated limitations of knowledge and data availability, application of other economic techniques should also be considered (although not applied here) to complement the more formal environmental cost-benefit analysis approach. ; Publisher PDF ; Peer reviewed

Marine legislation is becoming more complex and marine ecosystem-based management is specified in national and regional legislative frameworks. Shelf-seas community and ecosystem models (hereafter termed ecosystem models) are central to the delivery of ecosystem-based management, but there is limited uptake and use of model products by decision makers in Europe and the UK in comparison with other countries. In this study, the challenges to the uptake and use of ecosystem models in support of marine environmental management are assessed using the UK capability as an example. The UK has a broad capability in marine ecosystem modelling, with at least 14 different models that support management, but few examples exist of ecosystem modelling that underpin policy or management decisions. To improve understanding of policy, and management issues that can be addressed using ecosystem models, a workshop was convened that brought together advisors, assessors, biologists, social scientists, economists, modellers, statisticians, policy makers, and funders. Some policy requirements that can be addressed without further model development were identified including: attribution of environmental change to underlying drivers, integration of models and observations to develop more efficient monitoring programmes, assessment of indicator performance for different management goals, and the costs and benefit of legislation. Multi-model ensembles are being developed in cases where many models exist, but model structures are very diverse making a standardised approach of combining outputs a significant challenge, and there is need for new methodologies for describing, analysing, and visualising uncertainties. A stronger link to social and economic systems is needed to increase the range of policy-related questions that can be addressed. It is also important to improve communication between policy and modelling communities so that there is a shared understanding of strengths and limitations of ecosystem models.