The monitoring plan will be developed together with an environmental impact assessment of a specific seaweed cultivation activity, when the implementation plan is developed, and may be considered as part of a phase 2 of the present project.
However, a monitoring plan should include:
Description of the potential environmental impacts to be monitored
Baseline information
Current level of impacts (cumulative impacts)
Environmental aims/targets
Variable(s) to be monitored
Methodologies (adaptive monitoring method, frequency)
Possible analysis and feedback to potential need for monitoring plan adjustment.
For best practice, some standards regarding, e.g., seabed sediment monitoring exists, and is already implemented in the Faroe Islands regarding aquaculture. Thus, the Faroese “Alivegleiðing'' is in some respects based on the Norwegian Standard NS9410:2016 (2016) concerning soft bottom sediment monitoring (Umhvørvisstovan, 2018, 2023). As stated in Hancke et al. (2021), existing methods for monitoring the enrichment of seabed by organic material can be adjusted for monitoring below and around a seaweed cultivation system if assessed necessary.
Hence, in general, it is recommended that a monitoring programme is targeted and adjusted to the impacts and their levels, which also may depend on the size of the cultivation systems (Campbell et al., 2019; Norderhaug et al., 2021). A monitoring programme will therefore be based on the environmental baseline, the EIA and implemented mitigating measures.