EMODnet Chemistry supports the analysis of EU baselines

The first pan-European Marine Litter database, carried out by EMODnet Chemistry, has been used to compute EU Marine Litter quantitative Baseline. The latters are performed by the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC JRC) and represent a fundamental step of the MSFD Implementation Strategy to provide comparable assessments and to monitor the effectiveness of litter-reduction measures.

A subset of the pan-European Marine Litter database forms the Baselines dataset: the official monitoring data regarding litter on beaches. EMODnet Chemistry partnership along with Member States’ authorities, the Regional Sea Conventions, and some non-governmental organizations provided data and related information.

EMODnet Chemistry has been in charge of collecting and processing data in cooperation with the EC JRC and the MSFD Technical Group on Marine Litter (TG Litter), set up as part of the MSFD Implementation Strategy to support and advise the policy development and implementation process.

The baselines dataset includes a total 3,063 surveys on 389 European beaches over the period 2012 to 2016. It involves data from 22 European countries and all EU regions: Baltic Sea, Greater North Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, and NorthEast Atlantic Ocean.

Delivering a single database able to handle marine litter data at pan-European scale required a strict cooperation among involved parties to define the best possible data management strategy and to identify the most valuable methodology, as better explained in Marine litter database: Lessons learned in compiling the first pan-European beach litter database (Addamo et al., 2018).