Change in winter orthophosphate concentrations in coastal and open waters of the North East Atlantic, Baltic, Mediterranean and North Seas, for stations that include observations made in 2005 (left panel) and those that do not (right panel)

Bulgaria, France, Iceland, Malta, Portugal, Rumania, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey are members of the EEA but have reported time series of less than 5 years duration. Open Sea stations refer to stations located in international waters. Left figure: Stationwise trends in phosphate concentrations at stations that have been updated to include 2005 observations (% of stations showing statistically significant change, within the years 1985-2005). Numbers in parentheses indicates number of stations included in the analysis for each country. Country information differs from Figure 3 because the trend analysis requires a minimum of 5 years of information. Number of stations in a given country are not proportional to length of coastline. Right figure: Stationwise trends in phosphate concentrations at stations that have not been updated in 2005 but where data have previously been reported to the EEA.The figure shows percentage of stations showing statistically significant change, within the years 1985-2004. Numbers in parentheses indicates number of stations included in the analysis for each country. The reasons for information not being updated include discontinuation of some stations, countries not reporting their observations to the EEA or ICES (OSPAR and HELCOM data), and time consuming quality assurance procedures at ICES resulting in a backlog of data.