AndreaBozzo/ceres-open-data-index huggingface dataset:
Beach litter - Median number of fishing & aquaculture related plastic items normalized per 100m & to 1 survey - Other sources 2001/2021 v2023

This visualization product displays the fishing & aquaculture related plastic 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 fishing and aquaculture related plastic items only. 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);
		- 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 fishing & aquaculture related plastic items of the survey (normalized by 100 m) = Number of fishing & aquaculture related items of the survey x (100 / survey length)
		Then, this normalized number of fishing & aquaculture related plastic items is summed to obtain the total normalized number of fishing & aquaculture related plastic items for each survey. Finally, the median abundance of fishing & aquaculture related plastic items for each beach and year is calculated from these normalized abundances of fishing & aquaculture related items per survey.

Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account fishing & aquaculture related plastic 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.
Black Sea - Seafloor litter aggregated datasets 2011/2014 v2024

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 datasets contain standardized, harmonized and validated data collections from seafloor litter. 
Datasets concerning 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.
EMODnet seafloor litter data and database are hosted and maintained by ‘Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale, Division of Oceanography (OGS/NODC)’ from Italy.
For seafloor litter, the harmonized datasets contain all unrestricted EMODnet Chemistry data on seafloor litter data.
Data are formatted following Guidelines and forms for gathering marine litter data, which can be found at: https://dx.doi.org/10.6092/15c0d34c-a01a-4091-91ac-7c4f561ab508
The updated vocabularies of admitted values are available at:
https://vocab.seadatanet.org/search
https://vocab.ices.dk/ .
The harmonized datasets can be downloaded as EMODnet Sea-floor litter data format version 1.0, which is a csv file, tab separated values.
Seafloor litter - Spatial distribution of the sampling effort (period 2017-2022) v2025

This visualization product displays the spatial distribution of the sampling effort over the six-years' period 2017-2022.

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 bottom trawl surveys.

The spatial distribution was determined by calculating the number of times each cell was sampled during the period 2017-2022. The corresponding total distance (kms) sampled in each cell is also provided in the attribute table.

Information on data processing and calculation are detailed in the attached methodology document.

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.

This work is based on the work presented in the following scientific article:
O. Gerigny, M. Brun, M.C. Fabri, C. Tomasino, M. Le Moigne, A. Jadaud, F. Galgani, Seafloor litter from the continental shelf and canyons in French Mediterranean Water: Distribution, typologies and trends, Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume 146, 2019, Pages 653-666, ISSN 0025-326X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.07.030.
Black Sea - Beach litter aggregated datasets 2014/2022 v2024

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 at:
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. Local_CDI field in the survey metadata sheet allows to retrieve the original data.
Beach Litter - Median number of cigarette related items normalized per 100m & to 1 survey - without UNEP_MARLIN - EU-MSFD monitoring 2001/2020 v2021

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 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;
		- 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 and EU Threshold Value for Macro Litter on Coastlines from JRC (these two documents are attached to this metadata);
		- Exclusion 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 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 2011/2023 v2025

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 information about the sampling effort (km) was lacking and point coordinates were known (start and end of the sampling), the sampling effort was calculated using the PostGIS ST_DistanceSpheroid function with a WGS84 measurement spheroid.
When the number of micro-litters 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.
Beach litter - Median of total abundance items normalized per 100m & to 1 survey - Other sources 2001/2021 v2023

This visualization product displays the total 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;
		- 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).
		- 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 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.

Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account 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 - Median number of fishing & aquaculture related plastic items normalized per 100m & to 1 survey - Other sources 2001/2024 v2025

This visualization product displays the fishing & aquaculture related plastic 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 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 surveys from non-MSFD monitoring, cleaning and research operations;

- Exclusion of beaches without coordinates;

- Selection of fishing and aquaculture related plastic 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). The selection was adapted to the Joint list of litter categories fishing gears identification and therefore contains some differences with the selection made for previously published versions of this product;

- 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 fishing & aquaculture related plastic items of the survey (normalized by 100 m) = Number of fishing & aquaculture related items of the survey x (100 / survey length)

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


Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account fishing & aquaculture related plastic items from other sources data 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.
Micro litter - Spatial distribution of litter density normalized per km² - Research and monitoring protocols 2011/2023 v2025

This visualization product displays the spatial distribution of litter density 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, it was not possible to calculate the density.

The spatial distribution was then determined by calculating the weighted average of the densities in each cell using the following formula:
Weighted average of the cell c (number of particles per km²) = ( (Sampling effort (km) of net 1 * Density (number of particles per km²) of net 1) + … + (Sampling effort (km) of net N * Density (number of particles per km²) of net N) ) / ∑ Sampling effort (km) of all nets in the cell c.

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.

This work is based on the work presented in the following scientific article:
O. Gerigny, M. Brun, M.C. Fabri, C. Tomasino, M. Le Moigne, A. Jadaud, F. Galgani, Seafloor litter from the continental shelf and canyons in French Mediterranean Water: Distribution, typologies and trends, Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume 146, 2019, Pages 653-666, ISSN 0025-326X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.07.030.
Seafloor litter - Density per trawl normalized per km² 2011/2022 v2023

This visualization product displays the density of seafloor litter 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 (number of items per km²) = ∑Number of items / Swept area (km²)

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

More information on data processing and calculation are detailed in the document attached.

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.