Methodological procedure for water quality management in port areas at the EU level

ROM 5.1 is an environmental management standard designed by the Spanish National Ports Administration to bring port authorities a standardized tool to increase the knowledge about the connections between anthropogenic disturbance and the environmental attributes of water bodies (pressures/effects relationships). Based on the requirements of the WFD, ROM 5.1 provides a set of technical and methodological tools with capacity to predict and verify environmental problems and to recognise the elements on which management efforts should focus. t of the calibration process, this standard has been tested at different Spanish ports, in the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the Biscay Gulf. This contribution describes the results obtained in the port of Gijon (Biscay Gulf). In the implementation process the main point and diffuse discharge sources in the port area have been characterized; the significance of the risk caused to the quality of water bodies by these discharges has been evaluated; the effect of the port activity in the water bodies quality has been assessed; and the locations where the management efforts should be focused have been identified. All these processes have demonstrated that although a number of anthropogenic activities and uses with potentially negative impacts take place in the port of Gijon, the disturbance caused in the quality of the water bodies is negligible, local and mostly restricted to the inner and more sheltered areas. As a final outcome, the implementation in Gijon has highlighted the suitability of ROM 5.1 as an integrated tool to manage environmental port challenges.