GESAMP: Principles for Developing Coastal Water Quality Criteria - UNEP Regional Seas Reports and Studies No. 42

Coastal water quality criteria were considered for the protection of human health and amenities, ecosystems and living resources. For all uses, criteria must be based on cause-effect relationships. Twenty-one principles were developed, of which five pertain to goals, ten to methodology and six to implementation. Development of criteria for the protection of ecosystems is difficult because of the physical scale involved, costs and complexity of measurements required and our relative inexperience in this field. Protection of human health in consumption of sea food is often achieved through regulations of the quality of these products; but such regulations should not influence the role of criteria for the quality of the water where fish and shellfish are grown.