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<p>The health of the marine environment including phytoplankton (and any potential
algal blooms) is monitored for ecological status in the nearshore coasts and estuaries
and for environmental status from the coast to offshore waters. The majority of English
marine waters are considered to be healthy. There are some localised areas – estuaries
or shallow harbours – that are affected by eutrophication but this is primarily due
to nuisance green macroalgal mats, not blooms of phytoplankton.</p><p> </p><p>Several
years’ worth of data is used to assess the health of marine waters which allows for
typical variation between different years (often due to local meteorological conditions).
The Environment Agency uses the latest evidence from a number of sources in a regular
Weight of Evidence (WoE) assessment that suggests there has not been a significant
change in recent years.</p><p> </p><p>The Environment Agency is involved, with other
partners, in the S-3 EUROHAB project which is investigating using data from the recently
launched European satellite, Copernicus Sentinel 3, to track the growth and spread
of harmful algal blooms in the Channel in near real time.</p><p> </p><p>The Centre
for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) collects water samples
from designated shellfish growing areas on behalf of the Food Standards Agency (FSA).
These are analysed for various species of potentially harmful phytoplankton in the
context of human health. The FSA data at individual beds shows that the proportion
of samples over harmful limits varies quite widely each year.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
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