AndreaBozzo/ceres-open-data-index huggingface dataset:
Beach litter - Median of total abundance items normalized per 100m & to 1 survey - EU-MSFD monitoring 2001/2022 v2023

This visualization product displays the total abundance of marine macro-litter (> 2.5cm) per beach per year from Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) monitoring surveys.

EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Since the beginning of 2018, data of beach litter have been gathered and processed in the EMODnet Chemistry Marine Litter Database (MLDB).
The harmonization of all the data has been the most challenging task considering the heterogeneity of the data sources, sampling protocols and reference lists used on a European scale.


Preliminary processing were necessary to harmonize all the data:
		- Exclusion of OSPAR 1000 protocol: in order to follow the approach of OSPAR that it is not including these data anymore in the monitoring;
		- Selection of MSFD surveys only (exclusion of other monitoring, cleaning and research operations);
		- Exclusion of beaches without coordinates;
		- Some categories & some litter types like organic litter, small fragments (paraffin and wax; items > 2.5cm) and pollutants have been removed. The list of selected items is attached to this metadata. This list was created using EU Marine Beach Litter Baselines and EU Threshold Value for Macro Litter on Coastlines from JRC (these two documents are attached to this metadata);
		- Normalization of survey lengths to 100m & 1 survey / year: in some cases, the survey length was not exactly 100m, so in order to be able to compare the abundance of litter from different beaches a normalization is applied using this formula:
		Number of items (normalized by 100 m) = Number of litter per items x (100 / survey length)
		Then, this normalized number of items is summed to obtain the total normalized number of litter for each survey. Finally, the median abundance for each beach and year is calculated from these normalized abundances per survey.
		Sometimes the survey length was null or equal to 0. Assuming that the MSFD protocol has been applied, the length has been set at 100m in these cases.

Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account MSFD data for all years. 


More information is available in the attached documents.


Warning: the absence of data on the map doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.
Beach litter - Median number of single use plastics (SUP) related items normalized per 100m & to 1 survey - Other sources 2001/2021 v2023

This visualization product displays the single use plastics (SUP) related items abundance of marine macro-litter (> 2.5cm) per beach per year from non-MSFD monitoring surveys, research & cleaning operations.


EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Since the beginning of 2018, data of beach litter have been gathered and processed in the EMODnet Chemistry Marine Litter Database (MLDB).
The harmonization of all the data has been the most challenging task considering the heterogeneity of the data sources, sampling protocols and reference lists used on a European scale.


Preliminary processing were necessary to harmonize all the data:
		- Exclusion of OSPAR 1000 protocol: in order to follow the approach of OSPAR that it is not including these data anymore in the monitoring;
		- Selection of surveys from non-MSFD monitoring, cleaning and research operations;
		- Exclusion of beaches without coordinates;
		- Selection of SUP related items only. The list of selected items is attached to this metadata. This list was created using EU Marine Beach Litter Baselines for Macro Litter on Coastlines from JRC (this document is attached to this metadata);
		- Exclusion of surveys without associated length;
		- Normalization of survey lengths to 100m & 1 survey / year: in some case, the survey length was not 100m, so in order to be able to compare the abundance of litter from different beaches a normalization is applied using this formula:
		Number of SUP related items of the survey (normalized by 100 m) = Number of SUP related items of the survey x (100 / survey length)
		Then, this normalized number of SUP related items is summed to obtain the total normalized number of SUP related items for each survey. Finally, the median abundance of SUP related items for each beach and year is calculated from these normalized abundances of SUP related items per survey.

Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account SUP related items from other sources data for all years.


More information is available in the attached documents.


Warning: the absence of data on the map doesn't necessarily mean that they don't exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.
Beach litter - Number of surveys & temporal coverage per beach - EU-MSFD monitoring 2001/2023 v2025

This visualization product displays the number of Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) monitoring surveys and the associated temporal coverage per beach.


EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Since the beginning of 2018, data of beach litter have been gathered and processed in the EMODnet Chemistry Marine Litter Database (MLDB).
The harmonization of all the data has been the most challenging task considering the heterogeneity of the data sources, sampling protocols and reference lists used on a European scale.


Preliminary processings were necessary to harmonize all the data:
		- Exclusion of OSPAR 1000 protocol: in order to follow the approach of OSPAR that it is not including these data anymore in the monitoring;
		- Selection of MSFD surveys only (exclusion of other monitoring, cleaning and research operations);
		- Exclusion of beaches without coordinates.


More information is available in the attached documents.


Warning: the absence of data on the map does not necessarily mean that they do not exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.
Beach litter - Median number of cigarette related items normalized per 100m & to 1 survey - UNEP_MARLIN only - EU-MSFD monitoring 2001/2023 v2025

This visualization product displays the cigarette related items abundance of marine macro-litter (> 2.5cm) per beach per year from Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) monitoring surveys without UNEP-MARLIN data.


EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Since the beginning of 2018, data of beach litter have been gathered and processed in the EMODnet Chemistry Marine Litter Database (MLDB).

The harmonization of all the data has been the most challenging task considering the heterogeneity of the data sources, sampling protocols and reference lists used on a European scale.


Preliminary processings were necessary to harmonize all the data:

- Exclusion of OSPAR 1000 protocol: in order to follow the approach of OSPAR that it is not including these data anymore in the monitoring;

- Selection of MSFD surveys only (exclusion of other monitoring, cleaning and research operations);

- Exclusion of beaches without coordinates;

- Selection of cigarette related items only. The list of selected items is attached to this metadata. This list was created using EU Marine Beach Litter Baselines, the European Threshold Value for Macro Litter on Coastlines and the Joint list of litter categories for marine macro-litter monitoring from JRC (these three documents are attached to this metadata);

- Selection of surveys referring to the UNEP-MARLIN list: the UNEP-MARLIN protocol differs from the other types of monitoring in that cigarette butts are surveyed in a 10m square. To avoid comparing abundances from very different protocols, the choice has been made to distinguish in two maps the cigarette related items results associated with the UNEP-MARLIN list from the others;

- Normalization of survey lengths to 100m & 1 survey / year: in some case, the survey length was not exactly 100m, so in order to be able to compare the abundance of litter from different beaches a normalization is applied using this formula:

Number of cigarette related items of the survey (normalized by 100 m) = Number of cigarette related items of the survey x (100 / survey length)

Then, this normalized number of cigarette related items is summed to obtain the total normalized number of cigarette related items for each survey. Finally, the median abundance of cigarette related items for each beach and year is calculated from these normalized abundances of cigarette related items per survey.

Sometimes the survey length was null or equal to 0. Assuming that the MSFD protocol has been applied, the length has been set at 100m in these cases.

Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account cigarette related items from MSFD monitoring data (excluding UNEP-MARLIN protocol) for all years.


More information is available in the attached documents.


Warning: the absence of data on the map does not necessarily mean that they do not exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.
Beach litter - Single use plastics (SUP) related items abundance normalized per 100m & to 1 survey - Other sources 2001/2020 v2021

This visualization product displays the single use plastics (SUP) related items abundance of marine macro-litter (> 2.5cm) per beach per year from non-MSFD monitoring surveys, research & cleaning operations.


EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Since the beginning of 2018, data of beach litter have been gathered and processed in the EMODnet Chemistry Marine Litter Database (MLDB).
The harmonization of all the data has been the most challenging task considering the heterogeneity of the data sources, sampling protocols and reference lists used on a European scale.


Preliminary processing were necessary to harmonize all the data:
		- Exclusion of OSPAR 1000 protocol: in order to follow the approach of OSPAR that it is not including these data anymore in the monitoring;
		- Selection of surveys from non-MSFD monitoring, cleaning and research operations;
		- Exclusion of beaches without coordinates;
		- Selection of SUP related items only. The list of selected items is attached to this metadata. This list was created using EU Marine Beach Litter Baselines for Macro Litter on Coastlines from JRC (this document is attached to this metadata);
		- Exclusion of surveys without associated length;
		- Normalization of survey lengths to 100m & 1 survey / year: in some case, the survey length was not 100m, so in order to be able to compare the abundance of litter from different beaches a normalization is applied using this formula:
		Number of SUP related items of the survey (normalized by 100 m) = Number of SUP related items of the survey x (100 / survey length)
		Then, this normalized number of SUP related items is summed to obtain the total normalized number of SUP related items for each survey. Finally, the median abundance of SUP related items for each beach and year is calculated from these normalized abundances of SUP related items per survey.

Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account SUP related items from other sources data for all years.


More information is available in the attached documents.


Warning: the absence of data on the map doesn't necessarily mean that they don't exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.
Micro litter - Density per net normalized per km² - Research and monitoring protocols 2011/2020 v2023

This visualization product displays the density of floating micro-litter per net normalized per km² per year from research and monitoring protocols.
EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Before 2021, there was no coordinated effort at the regional or European scale for micro-litter. Given this situation, EMODnet Chemistry proposed 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. EMODnet Chemistry is currently the official EU collector of micro-litter data from Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) National Monitoring activities (descriptor 10).
A series of specific standard vocabularies or standard terms related to micro-litter have been added to SeaDataNet NVS (NERC Vocabulary Server) Common Vocabularies to describe the micro-litter.
European micro-litter data are collected by the National Oceanographic Data Centres (NODCs). Micro-litter map products are generated from NODCs data after a test of the aggregated collection including data and data format checks and data harmonization.

A filter is applied to represent only micro-litter sampled according to research and monitoring protocols as MSFD monitoring.

Densities were calculated for each net using the following calculation:
Density (number of particles per km²) = Micro-litter count / (Sampling effort (km) * Net opening (cm) * 0.00001)

When the number of microlitters or the net opening was not filled, the density could not be calculated.

Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account data for all years.

Warning: the absence of data on the map doesn't necessarily mean that they don't exist, but that no information has been entered in the National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC) for this area.
Micro litter - Density per net normalized per m³ - Other specific protocols 2017/2021 v2025

This visualization product displays the density of floating micro-litter per net normalized per m³ per year from specific protocols different from research and monitoring protocols.
EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Before 2021, there was no coordinated effort at the regional or European scale for micro-litter. Given this situation, EMODnet Chemistry proposed 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. EMODnet Chemistry is currently the official EU collector of micro-litter data from Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) National Monitoring activities (descriptor 10).
A series of specific standard vocabularies or standard terms related to micro-litter have been added to SeaDataNet NVS (NERC Vocabulary Server) Common Vocabularies to describe the micro-litter.
European micro-litter data are collected by the National Oceanographic Data Centres (NODCs). Micro-litter map products are generated from NODCs data after a test of the aggregated collection including data and data format checks and data harmonization.

A filter is applied to represent only micro-litter sampled according to a very specific protocol such as the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) or Oceaneye.

Densities were calculated for each net using the following calculation:
Density (number of particles per m³) = Micro-litter count / Sampling effort (m³) 
When the number of micro-litters was not filled, it was not possible to calculate the density.

Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account data for all years.

Warning: the absence of data on the map does not necessarily mean that they do not exist, but that no information has been entered in the National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC) for this area.
European beach litter standardized, harmonized and validated datasets 2001/2022 v2023

EMODnet Chemistry aims to provide access to marine chemistry data sets and derived data products concerning eutrophication, ocean acidification, contaminants and litter. The chosen parameters are relevant for  the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), in particular for descriptors 5, 8, 9 and 10. The dataset contains standardized, harmonized and validated data collections from beach litter (monitoring and other sources). 
Datasets concerning beach and seafloor litter data are loaded in a central database after a semi-automated validation phase. Once loaded, a data assessment is performed in order to check data consistency and potential errors are corrected thanks to a feedback loop with data originators.
For beach litter, the harmonized datasets contain all unrestricted EMODnet Chemistry data on beach litter, including monitoring data, data from cleaning surveys and data from research. A relevant part of the monitoring data has been considered for assessment purposes by the European institutions and therefore is tagged as MSFD_monitoring. EMODnet beach litter data and databases are hosted and maintained by 'Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale, Division of Oceanography (OGS/NODC)' from Italy.
Data are formatted following Guidelines and forms for gathering marine litter data, which can be found at: https://doi.org/10.6092/15c0d34c-a01a-4091-91ac-7c4f561ab508. The updated vocabularies of admitted values are available in https://nodc.ogs.it/marinelitter/vocab.
The harmonized datasets can be downloaded as EMODnet Beach litter data format  Version 7.0, which is a spreadsheet file composed of 4 sheets: beach metadata, survey metadata, animals and litter.
Beach litter - Beaches locations and litter list used - Other sources 2001/2020 v2021

This visualization product displays beaches locations where non-MSFD monitoring surveys, research & cleaning operations have been applied to collate data on macrolitter (> 2.5 cm).
Reference lists associated with these protocols have been indicated with different colors in the map.

EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Since the beginning of 2018, data of beach litter have been gathered and processed in the EMODnet Chemistry Marine Litter Database (MLDB).
The harmonization of all the data has been the most challenging task considering the heterogeneity of the data sources, sampling protocols and reference lists used on a European scale.


Preliminary processing were necessary to harmonize all the data:
		- Exclusion of OSPAR 1000 protocol: in order to follow the approach of OSPAR that it is not including these data anymore in the monitoring;
		- Selection of surveys from non-MSFD monitoring, cleaning and research operations;
		- Exclusion of beaches without coordinates;
		- Some categories & some litter types like organic litter, small fragments (paraffin and wax; items > 2.5cm) and pollutants have been removed. The list of selected items is attached to this metadata. This list was created using EU Marine Beach Litter Baselines and EU Threshold Value for Macro Litter on Coastlines from JRC (these two documents are attached to this metadata).

More information is available in the attached documents.


Warning: the absence of data on the map doesn't necessarily mean that they don't exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.
Micro litter - Density per net normalized in grams per km² - Other specific protocols 2011/2020 v2025

This visualization product displays the density of floating micro-litter per net normalized in grams per km² per year from specific protocols different from research and monitoring protocols.
EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Before 2021, there was no coordinated effort at the regional or European scale for micro-litter. Given this situation, EMODnet Chemistry proposed 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. EMODnet Chemistry is currently the official EU collector of micro-litter data from Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) National Monitoring activities (descriptor 10).
A series of specific standard vocabularies or standard terms related to micro-litter have been added to SeaDataNet NVS (NERC Vocabulary Server) Common Vocabularies to describe the micro-litter.
European micro-litter data are collected by the National Oceanographic Data Centres (NODCs). Micro-litter map products are generated from NODCs data after a test of the aggregated collection including data and data format checks and data harmonization.

A filter is applied to represent only micro-litter sampled according to a very specific protocol such as the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) or Oceaneye.

Densities were calculated for each net using the following calculation:
Density (weight of particles per km²) = Micro-litter weight / (Sampling effort (km) * Net opening (cm) * 0.00001)

When the weight of microlitters or the net opening was not filled, it was not possible to calculate the density.

Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account data for all years.

Warning: the absence of data on the map does not necessarily mean that they do not exist, but that no information has been entered in the National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC) for this area.
Seafloor litter - Plastic bags density normalized per km² 2011/2021 v2021

This visualization product displays plastic bags density per trawl.

EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Since the beginning of 2018, data of seafloor litter collected by international fish-trawl surveys have been gathered and processed in the EMODnet Chemistry Marine Litter Database (MLDB). 
The harmonization of all the data has been the most challenging task considering the heterogeneity of the data sources, sampling protocols (OSPAR and MEDITS protocols) and reference lists used on a European scale. Moreover, within the same protocol, different gear types are deployed during fishing bottom trawl surveys.

In cases where the wingspread and/or number of items were unknown, data could not be used because these fields are needed to calculate the density. Data collected before 2011 are affected by this filter.

When the distance reported in the data was null, it was calculated from:
- the ground speed and the haul duration using this formula: Distance (km) = Haul duration (h) * Ground speed (km/h);
- the trawl coordinates if the ground speed and the haul duration were not filled in.

The swept area is calculated from the wingspread (which depends on the fishing gear type) and the distance trawled:
Swept area (km²) = Distance (km) * Wingspread (km)

Densities have been calculated on each trawl and year using the following computation:
Density of plastic bags (number of items per km²) = ∑Number of plastic bags related items / Swept area (km²)

Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account data for all years.

The list of selected items for this product is attached to this metadata.
Information on data processing and calculation is detailed in the attached methodology document.

Warning: the absence of data on the map doesn't necessarily mean that they don't exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.