Jo Foden

Integrated assessments in the marine environment

School of Environmental Sciences
Norwich
NR4 7TJ
UK
+44 (0)1603 591343

Integrated assessments in the marine environment

Email Jo.Foden’at’uea.ac.uk

Background and experience

Following an MSc in Oceanography at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC, formally the SOC) in Southampton, Jo worked as a marine ecosystem scientist at the Centre for the Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) in Lowestoft, Suffolk; Cefas is a UK government executive agency. There the focus of her work was marine ecology, in particular environmental monitoring of water quality and eutrophication. This involved provision of advice to UK Government on eutrophication effects on angiosperms (seagrass) and macroalgae (seaweeds) in estuaries and coastal waters.

Jo’s research interests led to development of ecological monitoring and assessment indices for angiosperms and macroalgae under the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), for use by UK Government Agencies (e.g. Environment Agency) and conservation agencies (e.g. Countryside Council for Wales). Also the design, implementation and evaluation of monitoring programmes to assess environmental impacts of human activity on the marine and coastal zone.

At the national scale, Jo has led inter-agency fieldwork programmes involving EA, SEPA, CCW, EH, and the Marine Institute. Jo is a member of Member of the British Phycological Society and its Biodiversity & Conservation Committee, the Challenger Society for Marine Science, and the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography. She has worked on assessments of UK marine waters for international protocols such as OSPAR (Oslo-Paris Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic). Other international work has included being a theme leader at European workshops, such as international angiosperm assessment tools intercalibration, for the WFD.

Current work

Jo has passed her viva, published her Ph.D. thesis and will formally graduate in July 2011. She has been supervised by Dr Andy Jones, UEA and Dr Stuart Rogers, Cefas. The purpose of the thesis was to improve understanding and quantification of the cumulative and in-combination impacts from major offshore human activities in the marine environment. This is vital to underpin environmental impact assessment and marine planning, and to provide the basis for integrated marine management. Tools are needed to assist with the planning of human activities in the marine environment, and there is a need to develop new ways to determine what the impacts may be as well as to communicate information about their magnitude and nature. The research aims to utilise Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and visualisation technology to develop quantitative integrated assessments and to improve their communication.

Research Affiliations

School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia

Centre for the Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), Lowestoft

Publications

J. Foden, S.I. Rogers, A.P. Jones (2011). Human pressures and impacts on UK seabed habitats – a cumulative impact assessment. Marine Ecology Progress Series 428:33-47.

J. Foden, S.I. Rogers, A.P. Jones (2010). Recovery of UK seabed habitats from benthic fishing and aggregate extraction – towards a cumulative impacts assessment. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 411:259–270.

J. Foden (2010). EU Fisheries Management. POSTnote no. 357.

J. Foden, S.I. Rogers, A.P. Jones (2009). Recovery rates of UK seabed habitats after cessation of aggregate extraction. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 390:15-26.

J. Foden, M.J. Devlin, D.K. Mills, S.J. Malcolm (2010). Searching for undesirable disturbance: an application of the OSPAR eutrophication assessment method to marine waters of England and Wales. Biogeochemistry, in press.

M.J. Devlin, J. Barry, D.K. Mills, R.J. Gowen, J. Foden, D. Sivyer, N. Greenwood, D. Pearce, P. Tett (2009). Estimating the diffuse attenuation coefficient from optically active constituents in UK marine waters. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 82(1):73-83.

J. Foden, S.I. Rogers and A.P. Jones (2008). A critical review of approaches to aquatic environmental assessment. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 56:1825-1833

J. Foden, S.I.Rogers and A.P. Jones (2008). Assessing the performance of marine plans. ICES 2008 Annual Science Conference

J. Foden, D. Sivyer, D.K. Mills and M.J. Devlin (2008). Spatial and temporal distribution of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) fluorescence and its contribution to light attenuation in UK waterbodies. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 79(4):707–717

M. Devlin, J. Barry, D. Mills, R. Gowen, J. Foden, D. Sivyer, P. Tett (2008). Relationships between suspended particulate material, light attenuation and Secchi depth in UK marine waters. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 79(3):429-439

P. Tett, C. Carreira, D.K. Mills, S. van Leeuwen, J. Foden, E. Bresnan and R.J. Gowen (2009). Use of a Phytoplankton Community Index to assess the health of coastal waters. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 65(8):1475-1482

J. Foden and D.J. de Jong (2007). Assessment metrics for littoral seagrass under the European Water Framework Directive; outcomes of UK intercalibration with the Netherlands. Hydrobiologia, 583(1):383-383

J. Foden and D.P. Brazier (2007). Seagrass within the EU Water Framework Directive; a UK perspective. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 55:181–195.

C.M. Scanlan, J. Foden, E. Wells and M.A. Best (2007). The monitoring of opportunistic macroalgal blooms for the Water Framework Directive. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 55(1-6):162-171.

V. Stelzenmuller, J. Lee, A. South, J. Foden and S.I. Rogers (2008). Review of practical tools for marine planning. Centre for the Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science. 28 pp.

J. Foden and D.J. de Jong (2006). EU-WFD Milestone 6 Report – Coastal GIGs, intercalibration of seagrass metrics.

R. Parker, J. Foden, S. Bolam, D. Morris, S. Brown, T. Chesher, C. Fletcher and I. Moeller (2005). Suitability criteria for habitat creation – Report 1: Reviews of present practises and scientific literature relevant to site selection criteria. DEFRA FCD R&D Technical Report, Feb 2005

R. Parker, J. Foden, S. Bolam, D. Morris, S. Brown, T. Chesher, C. Fletcher and I. Moeller (2005). Suitability criteria for habitat creation - Report 2: Tools to aid site selection for habitat creation. DEFRA FCD R&D Technical Report FD1917, Feb 2005.

J. Foden, D.A. Purdie, S. Morris and S. Naiscimento (2004). Epiphytic abundance and toxicity of Prorocentrum lima populations in the Fleet Lagoon, UK. Harmful Algae, (4/6):1063-1074.

K. Cook and J. Foden (2005). Report on 2005 Isles of Scilly Zostera marina survey.