Use Cases

The Joint Research Centre leads the Technical Group on Marine Litter (TG ML), and has been working together with EMODnet Chemistry since 2016 on the development of various marine litter databases, to which European Member States provide data. EMODnet Chemistry gathers the data from these databases to produce aggregated, harmonised and validated data collections, that TG ML further uses to analyse progress towards the Marine Strategy Framework Directive's Good Environment Status. 

The EMB Habitat Mapping Working Group faced challenges in creating accurate and comprehensive marine habitat maps, particularly due to limited biological data and gaps in deep-sea coverage. EMODnet data—such as EUSeaMap, biology layers, and high-resolution bathymetry—was crucial in addressing these issues by providing detailed, accessible, and high-quality spatial data. This enabled the group to identify critical data gaps, assess habitat conditions, and inform future mapping priorities.

The Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) Challenge is an open-source platoform developed by Breda University of Applied Sciences. It hels users manage the blue economy and marine enviornmeny by simulating the impact of decisions on energy, shipping, and marine life. The simulations encourage users to utilize the best available data for assessing the current status and planning the future development of sea space. The data includes EMODnet services, which were used in an MSP Challenge to map bathymetry, biology, human activity and seabed habitat data for a simulation game supporting educational and stakeholder engagement.

The Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA), one of the EMODnet partners, is a state laboratory whose mission is to promote and coordinate scientific research, technological development, innovation and services on sea and atmosphere. IPMA is responsible for executing the geophysical, geological, geotechnical and environmental studies in the REPowereu project, which has the aim of developing up to 10 GW of electrical production centers in the offshore of Portugal, based on oceanic renewable energy until 2030.

To ensure coherent implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), the Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) was adopted by the Member States and the European Commission, also involving the Regional Sea conventions, as well as industry representatives and non-governmental organisations. The Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission's science and knowledge service, is part of the CIS and plays a key role in the implementation of the MSFD. JRC’s mission is to anticipate challenges related to EU policy development, integrate science and knowledge into legislation to design new policies, and monitor their implementation and impact. The JRC works to facilitate the exchange of harmonised marine policy and scientific information and to provide the CIS of the MSFD and other EU policies with up-to-date scientific knowledge. In order to best address the individual MSFD descriptors, technical groups were established within the CIS for marine litter, underwater noise, seabed integrity and data, as well as MSFD expert networks for other descriptors.

The University of Southampton and its Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute is a major European centre for oceanography and marine geoscience. The Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute (SMMI) is the largest entity of its kind in the world, with expertise in everything from naval architecture to social sciences and work to address issues in the natural ocean environment (marine) and human use of the sea (maritime). 

EUROqCHARM is an EU-funded H2020 project that lasted from 01 November 2020 – 31 October 2023. The project provided harmonised methodologies for the monitoring and assessment of marine plastics (macro-, micro- and nano-) in all environmental compartments: water, soil/sediment, air, and biota. Additionally, it released blueprints for standards of marine litter monitoring and data management and recommendations for policy and legislation.

As part of the AdriaClim project, researchers from the University of Bologna and the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change in Italy utilized EMODnet Chemistry data to create a detailed 3D biogeochemical model for the Adriatic Sea. Their analysis yielded insights into future biogeochemical changes driven by climate change, affecting marine ecosystems and key economic sectors like fisheries.

University of Girona used EMODnet datasets in the Horizon EU project Blue-Paths, to develop a dashboard demonstrator with the goal to inform the wider audience about the geographic and social, ecological and economic characteristics of the high-potential areas for offshore wind energy in the Spanish sea space in a dynamic manner.

In 2021, the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) chose EMODnet Chemistry as the web-based platform to manage Baltic Sea data on beach litter for the ‘State of the Baltic Sea’ holistic assessment report (HOLAS) purposes. Since then EMODnet Chemistry has ingested, harmonised and validated data that had been collected from 2016 to 2021 on 141 beaches in 9 countries.