Monitoring of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) constitutes the vital environmental component of the Union's Maritime Policy, designed to achieve the full economic potential of oceans and seas in harmony with the protection of the marine environment. Monitoring activities represent a crucial aspect of all MSFD initiatives and they are representing the only practical actions that will provide pivotal information to reach the Good Environmental Status by 2020. Monitoring activities are carried out following specific criteria for each of the eleven descriptors of GES set out in Annex I of the MSFD, and are accompanied by a number of related indicators, setting the scene for the final GES assessment. The aim of this paper is to describe the implementation of monitoring programmes in Italian water with a specific reference to planktonic and benthic communities of the Adriatic and Ionian regions, as indicators of the environmental status.