Marine Litter Data Collection and Metadata Compilation Approach for EMODnet Chemistry

1. WP2: Chemistry data collection and metadata compilation and approach for Marine Litter By Dick M.A. Schaap – Technical Coordinator Trieste - Italy, 17th May 2017, Kick-off meeting EMODnet Chemistry 3

2. Objectives of WP2: • To gather identified chemistry data sets • To populate chemistry data sets in the Chemistry CDI Data Discovery and Access Service • To review existing CDI entries to add more quality details and to check coherence CDI-ODV • To set-up guidelines for gathering and populating marine and beach litter data • To harvest and populate marine and beach litter data • To facilitate interoperability with data distributed by non-EU organisations

3. Approach for ‘classical’ chemistry measurements • Focus on data concerning eutrophication (nutrients, chlorophyll and oxygen) and selected contaminants, as a continuation of the previous EMODnet Chemistry 2 project • Geographical scope expanded with Barents Sea • Data scope expanded with riverine input of nutrients • Continuation of approach of gathering and populating relevant measurements data into the SeaDataNetCDI Data Discovery and Access service with CDI metadata format and ODV data format; use of MIKADO and NEMO / Octopus tools

4. Chemistry CDI Data Discovery and Access Service

5. Chemistry CDI Data Discovery and Access Service

6. Chemistry CDI Service – coverage (15 May 2017) • 854169CDI records and data sets (June 2014: 661095; June 2015: 731109; June 2016: 807959) European waters (N80 W-30; N20 E65) • 771655CDI records and data sets (June 2014: 587538; June 2015: 651507; June 2016: 710712) • 64 Data Centres (65,62,64) • 32 Countries (32,31,32) • 317 Originators (291,248,311) • 1868 – 2017 years • 84% unrestricted (84, 82) • 16%to be negotiated (16,18,16)

7. CDI population and maintenance by partners for eutrophication and contaminants: • Gathering of local data and metadata by partners • Mapping and local editing activities • Compiling and validating batches of metadata • Submission to MARIS for import and validation into the operational CDI directory • Maintaining the coupling table between CDI metadata and local data

8. Extra efforts required by data providers for: • Ensuring coherence of the CDI – ODV relations • Ensuring validity of ODV files => Guidelines have been reviewed and extra templates have been prepared • Including additional quality information in CDI • Including indication ‘Monitoring <-> Research’ • Review existing CDIs where needed • Follow the inventory as provided as part of the proposal • Instructions and training coming days • From now till October 2017

9. Marine Litter • Marine litter (including plastics) is a new topic and high on political agenda • The tender asks for marine litter: • collected on beaches • in fishermen's nets • in specific surveys • It is stipulated that digital layers of plastic or litter must be available after the first year. • Focus on: • Beach litter (nets, bottles etc.) • Seafloor Litter (i.e. litter collected by fish trawl surveys) • Micro Plastics • Not on litter in biota or floating litter

10. Cooperation and synergy options • MSFD Technical Support Group – Marine Litter (TSG-ML), chaired by Francois Galgani – IFREMER with co-chair Georg Hanke – JRC • Project on Marine Litter baselines – chaired by Georg Hanke – JRC, project assigned by DG Env and EEA; tasked to formulate ML baselines on short term • Regional Sea Conventions (OSPAR, HELCOM, UNEP/MAP, BSCS) • EU Research projects (DeFishGear, PERSEUS, EMBLAS, …) • ICES • EMODnet Data Ingestion project

11. Present situation – beach litter • Western Europe: OSPAR countries are reporting about beach litter to OSPAR and this is published at the website of the UK based Marine Conservation Society (MCS) – contact: Sue Kinsey - MCS • List of possible items to be recorded for beach litter is described in the ‘Guideline for Monitoring Marine Litter on the Beaches in the OSPAR Maritime Area’; • Baltic Sea countries: there are some national pilot projects for beach litter. HELCOM is now developing the SPICE system, following UNEP protocol – contacts: Marta Ruiz and Joni Kaitaranta - HELCOM • Mediterranean countries: there is no formal gathering and reporting, however UNEP/MAP plans to develop a Beach Litter system – contacts Tatiana Hema and Christos Ioakeimidis – UNEP/MAP. Recently INFO/RAC has contracted a consultant for specifying a beach litter data management system as part of MED POL DM system. • DeFishGear project gathers beach litter data in the Adriatic and Ionian seas. • In many countries there are beach litter projects at local and regional scales, organised by national agencies, NGOs and citizen projects.

12. Present situation – seafloor litter • North and Western Europe: ICES countries are reporting seafloor litter as collected through fish trawls to ICES and in particular to its DATRAS (the Database of Trawl Surveys) database; ICES publishes several controlled vocabularies at its website - contact Neil Holdsworth - ICES • Baltic countries: HELCOM has the Baltic International Trawl Surveys (BITS) programme which data are included in DATRAS at ICES. • Mediterranean countries: MEDITS initiative for trawl surveys - contact Maria Theresa Spedicato - COISPA, there is no database yet. EU Research projects such as PERSEUS – contact Vangelis Papathanassiou – HCMR; DeFISHGEAR – contact Stefan Trdan – Slovenia for Adriatic – Ionian seas • Black Sea countries: EU Research projects such as PERSEUS, EMBLAS, …

13. Proposed approach for EMODnet Chemistry • Opt for developing two central EMODnet internet databases: • one for beach litter, modelled after the OSPAR-MCS approach • one for seafloor litter, modelled after the ICES-DATRAS approach. • Arrange data exchange mechanisms and cooperations with the relevant regional systems, their responsible managers and related networks. • Encourage further population of the existing systems by organisations in the relevant regions. • Set up and operate central submission facilities for covering submissions by organisations in regions that fall outside existing systems. • Extra population by EMODnet Chemistry partners and through EMODnet Ingestion project • Develop search and display services (including maps) on the central EMODnet validated databases;

14. Proposed approach for EMODnet Chemistry • Further analysis needed concerning differences in formats, classifications and collection methods and how data sets from the different planned sources might be combined in the EMODnet European databases for beach litter respectively seafloor litter. • This action can learn from the JRC ‘Project on Marine Litter baselines’ and interaction with the TSG-ML. • Cooperation needed and arranging harvesting from: • Beach litter: OSPAR - MCS, HELCOM – SPICE (under construction), UNEP/MAP – INFO/RAC (planning) • Seafloor litter: ICES – DATRAS (incl HELCOM – BITS), MEDITS, DeFISHGEAR, PERSEUS, … • Involving experts: Thomas Maes – Seafloor litter expert via OSPAR; David Fleet – Beach litter expert via OSPAR; Monika Peterlin – expert Master list

15. Micro plastics • MSFD descriptor 10 considers microparticles. Microplastic is likely to be the most significant part of this. It includes particles < 5 mm (TSG-ML) • At TWG meeting agreed that microplastics observation data sets can be fit in the SeaDataNet CDI – ODV formats. • OGS has undertaken further analysis and formulation of a draft guideline • Plan to submit also a proposal for gathering microplastics data using SeaDataNet infrastructure to the TSG_ML that will meet early June 2017 • More details later this week by OGS