Guidelines and formats for gathering and management of micro-litter data sets on a European scale (floating and sediment micro-litter)

Abstract

Since its third phase (dated 2016), EMODnet Chemistry's scope has been expanded with gathering data and developing access to data and data products for marine litter, including macro-objects as well as microparticles. The descriptor 10 of the MSFD (European Commission 2017, 2008; Galgani et al, 2013) considers micro-litter as one of the elements in Criteria D10C2 ”The composition, amount and spatial distribution of micro-litter on the coastline, in the surface layer of the water column, and in the seabed sediment, are at levels that do not cause harm to the coastal and marine environment”. In the same line, RSCs have included micro-litter as a criterion of marine environmental status. The principle of EMODnet Chemistry to face new litter topics is to analyze in detail the best practices already developed by consolidated communities, and then propose a format able to handle all the available information with a focus on the European and global perspective. For micro-litter, there are not yet coordinated efforts at regional or European scale. Considering this situation EMODnet Chemistry proposes to adopt the data gathering and data management approach as generally applied for marine data, i.e., populating metadata and data in the CDI Data Discovery and Access service using dedicated SeaDataNet data transport formats. This document gives background information about micro-litter and in particular it provides description and examples of metadata and data formats for gathering and managing data sets of micro-litter collected on the sea surface and on the sediments on a European scale. It updates and extends the previous Proposal for gathering and managing data sets on marine micro-litter on a European scale (Galgani et al., 2019) only related to floating particles.