Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme (TWAP): status and trends in primary productivity and chlorophyll from 1996 to 2014 in Large Marine Ecosystems and the Western Pacific Warm Pool, based on data from satellite ocean colour sensors.

This report is an output of the Large Marine Ecosystems component of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme (TWAP), which was implemented from 2013–2015by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)and co-executed by the following lead agencies for each of the five transboundary water system categories that were assessed: the International Hydrological Programme (IHP) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for transboundary aquifers including groundwater systems in Small Island Developing States; the International Lake Environment Committee Foundation (ILEC) for lakes and reservoirs; the UNEP-DHI Partnership –Centre on Water and Environment (UNEP-DHI) for river basins; and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO for large marine ecosystems (LMEs) and the open ocean.The objective of the analysis presented in this report was to characterize the status and major trends in primary productivity and chlorophyllafor the world’s LMEsand the Western Pacific Warm Pool from 1996 to 2014, based on data obtained from five satellite ocean colour sensors. The current assessment is an update of the time series (January 1998 through December 2006)presented in The UNEP Large Marine Ecosystem Report: A perspective on changing conditions in LMEs of the world’s Regional Seas. A summary of this report is presented as Chapter 5.1 in:the TWAP LMEsassessment report (IOC-UNESCO and UNEP, 2016. Large Marine Ecosystems: Status and Trends. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi).The author thanks DrKimberly Hyde for providing a comprehensive time series of global SST data and for her assistance in the application of theOPAL productivity model; J.C. Landry for editorial and research assistance; Betsy Petersonfor editing and layout; and Sherry Heileman, Julian Barbière and Kenneth Sherman for their guidance and assistance. The financial support for this work was providedby the Global Environment Facility.