Key outcomes from the peer review

Scotland’s Marine Assessment 2020 (SMA2020) has been subjected to a rigorous peer review. This was viewed by Scotland’s Seas Data Assessment Group (SSDAG) as an essential component of the delivery of a robust assessment. The peer reviewers provided detailed comments on all aspects of SMA2020. These were returned to the authors who then responded to the comments. The peer reviewers were asked to respond to a number of questions. Specifically that the assessment:

1. Satisfied the requirements, Section 5 (4) (b) and (c), of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010.
2. Supported the National Marine Plan vision for the marine environment: 'clean, healthy, safe, productive, biologically diverse marine and coastal environments, managed to meet the long-term needs of nature and people’.
3. Adequately covered the subject areas / sectors of the National Marine Plan.
4. Contained useful and appropriate status and trend information.
5. Contained information focussed on the statutory Scottish Marine Regions as well as the non-statutory Offshore Marine Regions.
6. Contained material to support the ‘Climate Change – Evidence Base’ statements in the National Marine Plan.
7. Contained material to support an ecosystem based approach.
8. Contained material to support the Sustainable Development Goals and the Scottish National Performance Framework.

In finalising the process, the peer reviewers were requested to present a summary of their findings. This is contained within the tile entitled ‘Summary of peer review’. SSDAG has provided a short response to the summary document. This is contained within the tile entitled ‘SSDAG's response to the peer review summary'.