Further development of the professional basis for assessing the condition of ecological systems on land

The professional system for the ecological condition is an ecological and methodological framework to assess the ecological condition in the major ecological systems. The contract concerns the further development of the professional basis to assess the condition in accordance with this framework for the ecological systems wetland, semi-natural land, and natural open areas below the tree line.

Trondheim

The contract concerns the further development of the professional basis to assess the condition of the ecological systems on land, including wetland, semi-natural land, and natural open areas below the tree line on a national scale. The development work must allow two different methods for assessing the condition; the index method, and the professional panel method. The work includes assessing the appropriate division of the ecological systems, assessing appropriate indicators and mapping existing knowledge on them, assessing the need for new monitoring and possibly proposing a set-up for this, collecting of pilot data from any new monitoring, obtaining and facilitating a data basis, and developing indicators including determining reference values/conditions for intact nature and boundary values/conditions for good condition. The development of indicators must be coordinated across the three ecological systems to the greatest possible degree, and the use of new technology is to be considered as part of making data collection and analyses more efficient. We intend to enter into a contract with a researcher group with participation from several institutions that is managed by NINA. In this way we will use built up researcher competence from development work on the professional system for the ecological condition and monitoring up until now. The contract period is 1 year and 10 months.

The Norwegian Environment Agency intends to enter into a contract with the Norwegian Institute for

Nature Research (NINA) for work on the further development of the professional basis for assessing the condition of the ecological systems on land, including wetland, semi-natural land, and natural open areas below the tree line. Pursuant to the public procurement regulations, §2-5, we consider that the work comes under the exception for the contracts for research and development services.

In order to fulfil the exemption in §2-5, the main element in the procurement must be research or development. In this contract the main element is the development and testing of new methodology, a significant degree of analyses of indicator data/time series that include the use of expert assessments and new technology. The development and establishment of a professional system for the ecological condition is complex, groundbreaking work, due to the development of a new methodology based on scientific criteria for good ecological conditions. This requires scientific expertise on the structure and function of ecological systems, combined with good knowledge of monitoring systems and ecological data. The need for the further development of the professional basis for assessing the condition of ecological systems on land will be met through a contract with NINA in cooperation with other relevant researchers and carried out by an appropriately broad researcher forum, at the same time that we ensure that developed research competence in the field is used.

Another term is that the result does not fully belong to the contracting authority. In this work both parties have access to the results, and the results will be made available to the public.

Further development of the professional basis for assessing the condition of ecological systems on land