Use Cases

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.

Venice Lagoon Plastic Free (VLPF) is a non-profit organization based in Venice (Italy), listed on the National Single Third Sector Registry (RUNTS), the EMODnet data providers list, supporter of the WWF Plastic Smart City Initiative and signatory of the EU Charter Restore our Ocean and Water mission. The VLPF team is the co-designer of the REMEDIES Shoreline ML App together with Infordata Sistemi (Italy), developed under the Horizon Europe REMEDIES project. EMODnet was used to retrieve relevant historical marine litter data in order to plan and enrich our work on the pan European marine litter database. In addition, downloaded data are used for advanced statistics and data comparison during the development of the Beach Litter Monitoring App. EMODnet also provided valuable services such as the beach litter format validator, which assisted in generating correct datasets that then were submitted to the EMODnet ingestion portal.

EOSC-Future is an EU-funded H2020 project that lasted from April 2021 to the end of March 2024. The project implemented the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). EOSC provides European researchers with a virtual environment for sharing and accessing research data across borders and scientific disciplines. EOSC-Future developed and operated key components of the EOSC core: the services required for the operation of the EOSC. Some examples of the services developed within EOSC Future are the EOSC Marketplace, the EOSC Interoperability Framework, the EOSC Catalogue.

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.

The Horizon Europe MSP4Bio project used EMODnet multidisciplinary marine in situ data, including from Bathymetry, Biology and many other thematic data, to inform an Ecological-Socio-Economic (ESE) management framework used for science-based MSP to safeguard and restore biodiversity in a coherent European MPA network. 

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.

In the framework of the MoU signed between EMODnet Chemistry and the In Situ Thematic Assembly Centre (INSTAC) of Copernicus Marine Service, the version 2018 of the six EMODnet regional quality controlled and aggregated datasets for eutrophication and acidification were integrated in the INSTAC BioGeoChemical products.

Plastic pollution is a pressing global issue that endangers marine ecosystems, human well-being and animal welfare. Only 9 percent of plastic is recycled; by 2025, we could be dealing with up to 250 tonnes of mismanaged waste; every year the world uses up to 5 trillion plastic bags; about 10 million tonnes of plastic enters our oceans each year.

EMODnet Chemistry provided valuable contributions to the completion of  a Joint List of Litter Categories for Marine Macrolitter Monitoring that includes the litter types occurring in the coastal and marine environment. The list can be used to enable comparable monitoring across the European Seas and beyond, as well as across different compartments of the marine environment.