Invitation to Tender for the Undertaking of Sampling and Imposex measurement services 2023.

Tender description

The Department is required to undertake a sampling and imposex measurement survey for 2023 as part of Ireland’s commitments under the OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), the aim of which for EU marine waters to achieve ‘good environmental status’ (GES) by 2020. Specifically, one of the MSFD’s qualitative descriptors for GES is that ‘The health of species and the condition of habitats (such as their species composition and relative abundance at locations of chronic pollution) are not adversely affected due to contaminants including cumulative and synergistic effects’. There is now a requirement for the completion of an updated survey in order to assess imposex status to compare with previous surveys which have been compiled on approximately 6 year cycles from 1987 to 2018.