NERI Technical report no. 532. NOVANA. Nationwide Monitoring and Assessment Programme for the Aquatic and Terrestrial. Programme Description – Part 1. Svendsen, L.M. & Norup, B. 2005. 54 pp.
Summary
The Nationwide Monitoring and Assessment Programme for the Aquatic and Terrestrial Environments (NOVANA) entered into force on 1 January 2004.
With this programme Denmark can fulfil its international monitoring and reporting obligations and other important national obligations pertaining to nature and the environment – at least at a minimum level.
The NOVANA programme replaces the Danish Aquatic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (NOVA-2003), which had been running since 1998. This programme derived from the 1987 Action Plan on the Aquatic Environment, which included the establishment of a monitoring programme for the aquatic environment. For the Ministry of the Environment and the regional authorities (the Counties, Regional Municipality of Bornholm, Copenhagen Municipality and Frederiksberg Municipality), the intention of NOVANA was to incorporate nature monitoring and especially monitoring of species and terrestrial natural habitats into the national monitoring, not least in the light of Denmark’s obligations under the Habitats Directive. In contrast to NOVA-2003, NOVANA therefore includes monitoring of species and terrestrial natural habitats. Moreover, greater priority has been accorded to aquatic species and habitats.
In 1987, a governmental block grant for monitoring the aquatic environment was agreed with the Counties, Copenhagen Municipality and Frederiksberg Municipality. Moreover, further governmental resources were allocated to cover the monitoring activities run by the Ministry of the Environment. The Counties have incorporated part of their environmental supervision activities into the aquatic environment monitoring programme. Additional funds have not been allocated for monitoring in NOVANA, and the programme keeps within the framework for subsidies to the regional authorities specified in the current official document about the Nationwide Monitoring Programme under the Action Plan on the Aquatic Environment (Ministry of the Interior, 1987). The aquatic monitoring has therefore been reduced, especially monitoring of nutrients, hazardous substances, geographic coverage, etc. A further consequence has been that the programme primarily fulfils requirements pursuant to international agreements, while national requirements are not met to the same extent as previously.
A draft of the NOVANA programme underwent public hearing during the period December 2002 to January 2003. This resulted in 31 submissions. Several of these expressed regret about the reductions in the monitoring of hazardous substances, and calls were made for the reasons for the reductions. This is explained in more detail in Section 4.1.4.
Reference is sometimes made in this report to the Programme Description for NOVA-2003. This contains some detailed information and background information that can be useful in relation to NOVANA. A translation of the NOVA-2003 Programme Description is available at:
http://www.dmu.dk/Overvågning/NOVA-2003+arkiv/ and choose "Programbeskrivelse".
NOVANA is carried out collaboratively by institutions within the Ministry of the Environment (Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, National Environmental Research Institute, Danish EPA and Danish Forest and Nature Agency) and the regional authorities. Overall coordinating responsibility for the programme lies with the National Environmental Research Institute.
Part 1 of the Programme Description describes the background for NOVANA as well as the assumptions, overall aims, overall strategy, a brief review of the programme content, organization, economic framework, etc. The individual NOVANA subprogrammes are described in Part 2 of the Programme Description.
The chapters of Part 1 of the Programme Description contain the following:
Chapter 2 describes the assumptions on which NOVANA is based.
The overall objective of the programme, which is summarized above, is described in Chapter 3.
The programme strategy and the overall content of the subprogrammes and the most important changes relative to NOVA-2003 are described in Chapter 4. NOVANA consists of a number of subprogrammes:
The detailed strategy and the detailed content of the subprogrammes are presented in Part 2 of the Programme Description, Chapters 3 to 11.
Chapter 5 describes how the programme is managed, what roles the individual actors play, and what tasks they perform. NOVANA is a cooperation between institutions within the Ministry of the Environment and the regional authorities. The organization in place under the existing NOVA-2003 programme will continue, however, although in an expanded form that also encompasses the subprogramme for species and terrestrial natural habitats. The Steering Committee for marine waters and the atmosphere has now been divided into two Committees.
The subprogrammes’ overall economy is described in Chapter 6 together with some general calculation assumptions.
Chapter 7 describes a number of technical assumptions for accomplishment of the programme, including rules and agreements about data storage and transfer, programme deadlines, quality assurance and necessary supplementary data.
Chapter 8 describes NOVANA reporting agreements and the types of reporting.
Chapter 9 describes the timetable and plan for future adjustment and revision of NOVANA.
Full report in pdf format (1,159 kB).
