The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, 2008/56/EC) requires European threshold values (TVs) for all descriptors to be defined. In particular, for marine litter (descriptor 10), the MSFD Technical Group on Marine Litter (TG ML) decided that coastline macro litter, commonly referred as beach litter, would be the first marine litter issue to be faced.
The conservation or the achievement of the Good Environmental Status (GES) is a priority for any environmental policy mechanism of both EU and non-EU countries. Coherent data management and quality control are fundamental whenever data from different sources are required as in the case of the assessment of environmental status at regional or sub-regional scale sensu Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD).
EMODnet Chemistry delivered the first pan-European Marine Litter database. It has been used to compute EU Marine Litter quantitative Baseline, representing a fundamental step of the MSFD Implementation Strategy to provide comparable assessments and to monitor the effectiveness of litter-reduction measures.
The European contribution to the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) is significant with EMODnet playing a pivotal role: around 20 million of these records are provided by EMODnet Biology.
Undertaking a regional cumulative impact assessment requires a vast amount of spatial data. EUSeaMap v2016 was a key data source for defining ecosystem components in reporting on the 2011-2016 HELCOM ‘State of the Baltic Sea’.
The EMODnet Physics Portal map viewer allows the Fisheries and Oceans department of the Government of Canada to quickly view where a platform is located and which platforms are located next to it.
EMODnet Chemistry contributed to the Commission Staff Working Document IMPACT ASSESSMENT (Reducing Marine Litter: action on single use plastics and fishing gear), SWD(2018) 254 final, with an analysis of plastics distribution coming from for 2 "metacategories", namely fishing gear and single use plastics. The study use the ICES DATRAS available data aggregated per MSFD regions and years.
Now the approach would be to use ICES and EMODnet Chemistry to provide a comprehensive European data source for the European Environment Agency Marine Indicators on contaminants (Biota) and Eutrophication (Chla, Nutrients) and a pipeline on oxygen saturation.
JNCC produced a ‘Combined Map’ integrating data from field survey maps (mostly from the EUNIS habitat datasets collection) and the most recent version of the EMODnet Seabed Habitats broad-scale predictive habitat map available at that time. The Combined Map is a single flat layer without overlaps between habitats or component datasets, making it suitable and efficient for area calculations.
The pan-European map presenting the distribution of modelled broad scale seabed habitats (EUSeaMap v2016) made available through the EMODnet Seabed Habitats project, was crucial in the assessment recently performed by ISPRA in collaboration with the European Environment Agency to compile information on the distribution of all marine broad-scale habitats for the whole Western Mediterranean basin.