NP-GAN will catalyse action to address nutrient and wastewater pollution impacts on ocean ecosystems and human health focusing on land-based activities such as agriculture and sewage/domestic wastewater.
Our UN Decade program will go beyond the traditional approaches for nutrient mitigation, looking to facilitate innovative solutions integrating new technology, data and society.
This will be achieved by building the tools, knowledge, and capacity to evaluate source, fate, and impacts of land-based sources of pollution and by providing best-practice guidance and recommendations for solutions.
NP-GAN will harmonise knowledge from existing programs to develop a toolbox of pragmatic, cost-effective methods, guidelines and tools for monitoring, assessment, and mitigation activities.
We bring extensive experience across temperate and tropical systems in addressing nutrient and wastewater pollution for the benefit of marine ecosystems, human health and coastal communities.
Our Aim
NP-GAN aims to catalyse action to address nutrient and wastewater pollution impacts on ocean ecosystems and human health focusing on understanding the sources of nutrient pollution and accelerating the solutions.
We work with key partners and collaborate across the ocean community to deliver our programme vision as part of the United Nation Ocean Decade.
Our Programme
On behalf of Cefas, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Wildlife Conservation Society, Cartagena Convention, Commonwealth Secretariat and the Canadian Fisheries and Ocean Canada aims to identify actions to eliminate nutrient pollution under our endorsed Decade Action – Nutrient Pollution – Global Action Network (NP-GAN) with partners from across the world.
We are identifying steps to standardise approaches and exploring the interactions between science and policy to improve, mitigate, reduce, marine pollution to deliver on the ambitions of the UN Decade. We will share best practices and celebrate achievements where positive outcomes have been achieved for the reduction of nutrient pollution. We will work towards the acceleration of holistic approaches to managing our land to seascape for restoration and protection of our ocean systems.
Our UN Decade Ambitions
This program will go beyond the traditional approaches for nutrient mitigation, looking to facilitate innovative solutions integrating new technology, data and society. This will be achieved by building the tools, knowledge, and capacity to evaluate source, fate, and impacts of land-based sources of pollution and by providing best-practice guidance and recommendations for solutions.
NP-GAN will harmonise knowledge from existing programs to develop a toolbox of pragmatic, cost-effective methods, guidelines and tools for monitoring, assessment, and mitigation activities. We bring extensive experience across temperate and tropical systems in addressing nutrient and wastewater pollution for the benefit of marine ecosystems, human health and coastal communities.
What is the UN Ocean Decade ?
The Ocean Decade is a 10-year framework initiative to identify, generate and use critical ocean knowledge to manage the ocean sustainably.
Vision & Mission – Ocean Decade
Ocean Decade – The Science We Need For The Ocean We Want
10 Years. 10 Challenges. 1 Ocean.
The Ocean holds the keys to an equitable and sustainable planet.
Join the revolution to unlock innovative ocean science solutions.
- Challenge 1. Understand and beat marine pollution. Understand and map land and sea-based sources of pollutants and contaminants and their potential impacts on human health and ocean ecosystems and develop solutions to remove or mitigate them.
- Challenge 2. Protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity. Understand the effects of multiple stressors on ocean ecosystems, and develop solutions to monitor, protect, manage and restore ecosystems and their biodiversity under changing environmental, social and climate conditions.
- Challenge 3. Sustainably feed the global population. Generate knowledge, support innovation, and develop solutions to optimise the role of the ocean in sustainably feeding the world’s population under changing environmental, social and climate conditions.
- Challenge 4. Develop a sustainable and equitable ocean economy. Generate knowledge, support innovation, and develop solutions for equitable and sustainable development of the ocean economy under changing environmental, social and climate conditions.
- Challenge 5. Unlock ocean-based solutions to climate change. Enhance understanding of the ocean-climate nexus and generate knowledge and solutions to mitigate, adapt and build resilience to the effects of climate change across all geographies and at all scales, and to improve services including predictions for the ocean, climate and weather.
- Challenge 6. Increase community resilience to ocean hazards. Enhance multi-hazard early warning services for all geophysical, ecological, biological, weather, climate and anthropogenic related ocean and coastal hazards, and mainstream community preparedness and resilience.
- Challenge 7. Expand the Global Ocean Observing System. Ensure a sustainable ocean observing system across all ocean basins that delivers accessible, timely, and actionable data and information to all users.
- Challenge 8. Create a digital representation of the ocean. Through multi-stakeholder collaboration, develop a comprehensive digital representation of the ocean, including a dynamic ocean map, which provides free and open access for exploring, discovering, and visualizing past, current, and future ocean conditions in a manner relevant to diverse stakeholders.
- Challenge 9. Skills, knowledge and technology for all. Ensure comprehensive capacity development and equitable access to data, information, knowledge and technology across all aspects of ocean science and for all stakeholders.
- Challenge 10. Change humanity’s relationship with the ocean. Ensure that the multiple values and services of the ocean for human wellbeing, culture, and sustainable development are widely understood, and identify and overcome barriers to behaviour change required for a step change in humanity’s relationship with the ocean.
Nutrient Pollution The problem
Globally, almost one billion people now live within 100 kilometres of coastal habitats, placing enormous pressure on these ecosystems through land-based pollution. Coral reefs and seagrasses are among the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet, providing essential services to over 500 million people worldwide. These services include food security, coastal protection from storms, and livelihoods through tourism and fisheries. However, the deforestation, conversion of land for agriculture, and urbanization have resulted in significant increases in sediment, nutrient, and contaminant pollution draining into coral reef systems. These pollutants impact on viable habitat and complexity, and reduce biodiversity, negatively impacting essential species, reducing resilience to climate change, and increasing disease outbreaks.
Excess nutrients from fertiliser application, sewage discharge and stormwater outflows move through our rivers from lands to oceans and can seriously impact coastal ecosystems. Terrestrial runoff of waters polluted with nutrients (primarily nitrogen [N] and phosphorus [P] compounds) from point source/s, such as sewage treatment plant (STP) discharges, and diffuse sources via river discharges, such as excess fertiliser loss, are having devastating adverse effects in coastal and marine ecosystems globally.
Despite our understanding of these impacts, there is a significant gap in accessible, practical guidance for mitigating land-based pollution – especially compared to the availability of manuals for coral restoration and Marine Protected Area (MPA) implementation. Lack of harmonisation, lack of action and disconnected management actions has made it difficult to achieve success in managing water quality for the natural environment and human health.
Shared understanding of the various pathways of nutrient pollution and appropriate responses provides critical understanding to identify and implement appropriate and sustainable solutions. Governments have responded to the “eutrophication crisis” by adopting Sustainable Development Goal 14.1.1 and, most recently, Global Biodiversity Framework targets that call for a dramatic, rapid reduction in nutrient pollution. The success of these targets will be dependent on the accessibility of affordable, frequent, and accurate monitoring to inform mitigation strategies.
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Thematic Priorities
- Enable positive actions around the control, reduction and prevention of marine pollution and add to the identification of critical ocean knowledge.
- Shared understanding of the various pathways of nutrient pollution and appropriate responses provides critical understanding to identify and implement appropriate and sustainable solutions.
- Enhance databases, information and knowledge management systems and regional and global assessment reports on oceans including on indicators and methodologies.
- Improved understanding of how nutrient pollution affects pelagic and coastal habitats to support implementation of nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based management approaches.
- Test the development of the SDG 14.1.1a Index of Coastal Eutrophication to implement and analyse nutrient loading and imbalances from all of the regional areas covered by partners.
- Build capacity in LDCs, SIDS and LLDCs to monitor and assess sources of nutrients and wastewater contamination and their impact on coastal ecosystems, and to build capacity to design and implement targeted reduction and mitigation measures
- Develop guidelines for transnational companies and financial institutions to monitor and assess their risks and contribution to nutrient and wastewater pollution in support of Global Biodiversity Framework Target 15 (Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework).