EMODnet Chemistry - Highlights of 2021

Read the Top 5 EMODnet Chemistry highlights of the year:

1. Expanded quantity and quality of data, thanks to the strict cooperation of 66 data centres and over 500 data originators.

• Circa 130.000 more datasets were added to the CDI data discovery and Access Service for a total of 1.130.000 CDI entries.
• New types of data were included: 357 floating micro-litter surveys, and 32 surveys of micro-litter in sediment.
• Metadata and data quality were significantly checked and improved according to MSFD and Copernicus Marine Service purposes.

2. Increased the number of quality, user-targeted data products.

• Standardised, harmonized, validated data collections for all European seas concerning eutrophication, ocean acidification, contaminants and marine litter, were released following updated guidelines and forms .
• Three main typologies of products for eutrophication were published: monthly climatologies for all European seas; Seasonal climatologies by sea region; Seasonal climatologies of specific coastal areas.
• Updated maps for beach litter (2001-2020) and seafloor litter (2006- 2021) were made available.
• The new visualizations for beach litter display the total abundance of marine macro-litter per beach per year from Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) monitoring surveys , and from non-MSFD monitoring surveys, research & cleaning operations .
• The webODV Data Explorer and Extractor was expanded for handling contaminants data. The online service enables users to explore, subset, visualize, and extract data from the EMODnet Chemistry data collections for eutrophication and contaminants.

3. Published scientific papers supporting Open Science principles.

• Frontiers: A Global Ocean Oxygen Database and Atlas for Assessing and Predicting Deoxygenation and Ocean Health in the Open and Coastal Ocean.
• ESECR: Data sharing, public engagement and innovation: the Open Science pillars to support knowledge-based marine strategies .
• Marine Pollution Bulletin: Data quality and FAIR principles applied to marine litter data in Europe .
• Environ. Res. Lett.: The quest for seafloor macrolitter: a critical review of background knowledge, current methods and future prospects .
• JEPE (in press): Numerical modelling of marine litter distribution In Georgian coastal waters of the Black Sea.

4. Confirmed as the platform for EU marine pollution in situ observations.

• The EC Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) required Member States to include micro-litter data into the regular ingestion of the MSFD monitoring marine litter data.
• EMODnet Chemistry contributed to the Joint List of Litter Categories for Marine Macrolitter Monitoring.
• A stronger cooperation with EC-JRC and the MSFD group of experts on contaminants was established.
• On Regional Sea Conventions, EMODnet Chemistry has been including HELCOM data into the beach litter database and has been contributing to the 2023 UNEP/MAP Mediterranean Quality Status Report .
• The European Environment Agency has increasingly been relying on EMODnet Chemistry to exchange data and data products for populating the indicators and drawing up the report on the environmental status .
• EMODnet Chemistry data products are indexed and made available via the Blue-Cloud Data Discovery and Access service , the European marine thematic platform of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
• Copernicus started using EMODnet Chemistry data collections and a first joint data product portfolio for the MSFD was released.
• EMODnet Chemistry has been increasing its interaction with the EUROqCHARM project, which analyses and evaluates existing methodologies for plastic pollution assessment, and harmonizes them on a European level.

5. Advanced the global cooperation

• The UN Global Ocean Oxygen Database and Atlas (GO2DAT), the UN Global Ocean Acidification (SDG14.3.1) Data Portal, the UN Global Partnership on Marine Litter Digital Platform (GPML) and the NOAA/NCEI – World Ocean Atlas received contributions from EMODnet Chemistry for their implementation.
• EMODnet Chemistry participated in the realization of the Sulitest module (a set of questions) for literacy on the Goal 14 of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development .
• With the G20 International Experts on Marine Plastic Litter Monitoring Data Sharing Project , EMODnet Chemistry has been discussing the prototype ‘Microplastics Data-sharing System’ to collect and give free access to microplastic data on a global scale, and the proposals for a ‘Data Entry Form Sheet’ and a ‘Data List Sheet’.
• The partnership has been participating in the Global Marine Litter and Plastic Pollution Ontology peer review process .