EMODnet Chemistry plenary meeting, 29th-30th January 2019 Madrid, Spain Guidelines for beach, seafloor and floating-micro litter data gathering and population of databases Matteo Vinci Alessandra Giorgetti Maria Eugenia Molina Jack Maria Del Mar Chaves Montero Alberto Brosich OGS mvinci@inogs.it OGS agiorgetti@inogs.it OGS mmolinajack@inogs.it OGS mchavesmontero@inogs.it OGS abrosich@inogs.it

OUTLINE EMOdnet Chemistry scope quick recap Litter protocols, formats and data management Database contents Guidelines about: beach, seafloor and microlitter Litter data ”hindrances” Workplan and present status

EMODnet Chemistry 3 scope quick recap Beside the data management of nutrients and contaminants the scope of EMODnet Chemistry 3 has been extended to marine litter. The tender asks for marine litter: •collected on beaches •in fishermen's nets •in specific surveys EMODnet Chemistry 3 focused on gathering data, generating data products, publishing data and data products on a European scale for the following marine litter categories: •Beach litter (nets, bottles etc.) •Seafloor litter (i.e. litter collected by fish trawl surveys) •Micro litter (micro plastics) floating

EMODnet Chemistry 3 scope quick recap Marine litter data management, how? The plan was to: adopt consolidated data formats when available and adapt them when needed. In the other case new solutions were developed. Following this, three specific approaches have been proposed, using the best available reference documents to develop a tailor-made approach on a European scale.

FLOATING MICRO-LITTER Litter protocols and formats FLOATING MICRO-LITTER BEACH SEAFLOOR Existing and Consolidated protocols (OSPAR, UNEP, UNEP –Marlin, Italian ,TG- ML) Consolidated protocols (ICES, MEDITS, DeFishGear) More fragmented and heterogeneous management New EMODnet format based on OSPAR New EMODnet based on ICES and MEDITS Adapted SDCloud/EMODnet existing infrastructure and data formats (CDIs+LitterODV) Catch all type of data, providing central submission facilities, encouraging data exchange mechanisms and producing search and display services.

FLOATING MICRO-LITTER European Marine Litter data management FLOATING MICRO-LITTER BEACH SEAFLOOR Relational database (PostgreSQL) Spatial capabilities (PostGIS) CDIs Litter ODV Relational database (PostgreSQL) Spatial capabilities (PostGIS) tables: Beaches Surveys Animals Items Reference lists Vocabularies and auxiliary lists Import log +CDIs Metadata file: CDI Data file: Litter ODV tables: Surveys Hauls Items Reference lists Vocabularies Import log +CDIs

Under ingestion process: Volvo Ocean Race Database content EMODnet format Marine Litter Database Beach OSPAR-MCS JRC collection from Member States EMODnet partners and associates 29 countries 599 beaches Seafloor ICES-DATRAS database EMODnet partners 17 countries 2498 surveys Floating micro-litter 4 countries 131 surveys Under ingestion process: Volvo Ocean Race More data in future: EEA Litter Watch, MEDITS, DeFishGear, more from EMODnet partners,

Litter guidelines http://www.emodnet-chemistry.eu/documents/projectdocuments

Beach and Seafloor Litter guidelines http://www.emodnet-chemistry.eu/doi/documents/Guidelines-Litter_Data_EMODnetChemistry3_rev_20181128.pdf

Beach and Seafloor Litter guidelines

Beach Litter guidelines From guidelines: Considering beach litter, all data providers will work on gathering and describing their beach litter data for inclusion in the OSPAR/MCS database or in the EMODnet Central beach litter database, following guidelines, formats and forms based on OSPAR/MCS reference. (Wenneker et al., 2010). The EMODnet Central beach litter database is populated with data entries from data providers and by regular harvesting from the OSPAR database. Data providers OSPAR/MCS EMDChemistry

Beach Litter guidelines Data collection for beach litter includes information (mandatory and not) divided in four tables related to: Beach metadata (42 fields; info about: general info, beach geography, major usage and access, cleaning, other) Survey metadata (57 fields; info about: general info, towns/developments/rivers, additional info) Stranded or dead animals data (7 fields; info about: animals found/entanglement) Litter data (7 fields; info about: reference list, litter items code/name/count) The set of mandatory info requested are essential to be able to generate meaningful products

Beach Litter guidelines http://www.emodnet-chemistry.eu/lists/beach

Beach Litter guidelines It is possible to report beach litter items using the following reference lists: Code Description UNEP UNEP reference list (UNEP/IOC Guidelines on Survey and Monitoring of Marine Litter, 2009) OSPAR OSPAR reference list (Guideline for Monitoring Marine Litter on the Beaches in the OSPAR Maritime Area, 2010) TSG_ML TSG_ML reference list (Guidance on Monitoring of Marine Litter in European Seas. MSFD Technical Subgroup on Marine Litter, 2013) UNEP_MARLIN UNEP reference list adapted by MARLIN project (Final report of Baltic marine Litter project Marlin - litter monitoring and Raising awareness, 2011-2013) OSPAR_1000 OSPAR reference list for 1000 m surveys (Guideline for Monitoring Marine Litter on the Beaches in the OSPAR Maritime Area, 2010) BAL Baseline Aggregated List to aggregate items of other lists (*under development) ITA ITALIAN reference list according to the monitoring program for the marine strategy of the Italian Ministry of Environment (Programmi di Monitoraggio Per la Strategia Marina Art. 11, D.lgs. 190/2010) http://www.emodnet-chemistry.eu/lists/beach#ItemsReferenceLists

Beach Litter guidelines Beach litter datasets received are validated (at central level by ITA-NODC) by a validator that perform syntactic and semantic check providing a schematic output. Validator is still under finalization (improving user-friendliness), when ready will be shared with data submitter

Beach and Seafloor Litter guidelines

Seafloor Litter guidelines Considering seafloor litter data, there are already two different consolidated data description protocols adopted in North/Western part of Europe and in Mediterranean area since several years. There are three possible submission cases depending on the data provider if: it delivers its seafloor litter data in DATRAS – ICES Database of trawl surveys (XML to EMD Chemistry db) it delivers its seafloor litter data in MEDITS Format (under discussion) it is falling outside the above mentioned areas…submission to EMODnet Central seafloor litter database, following guidelines, formats and forms based on ICES experience

Seafloor Litter guidelines Data providers Datras XML Medits EMDChemistry

Seafloor Litter guidelines For partners which are not using neither ICES nor MEDITSs format, EMODnet Central Seafloor Litter Database follow an adapted structure from DATRAS format. 1 table with 30 column with info about: survey/trawl parameters shoot/haul info Litter items count or weigth

Seafloor Litter guidelines Quality controls: ICES Datras data ingested as XML without quality controls during the population of the database. They were checked inside the database feedback and corrections Data from single partners ingested outside of Datras data flow were checked during the population of the database  feedback and corrections

Floating micro litter guidelines

Floating micro litter guidelines Floating Micro-litter information have a more fragmented data management landscape. Examples from Ifremer, CEFAS and the Italian regional environmental agency has been successfully mapped to SeaDataNet CDI (Common Data Index) metadata format and to ODV (Ocean Data View) data format. CDI metadata ISO19115-ISO19139 based index, with no big changes to handle microlitter information ODV ASCII format able to handle profile, time series and trajectory data.

Floating micro litter guidelines ODV file format: Metadata columns Primary variable data columns (one column for the value plus one for the qualifying flag) Data columns two columns per variable (value and flag) A “bio-ODV like” template is used to manage the litter information. This kind of ODV files is specifically built to be able to manage some parameters as rows instead of columns. The file format have the following features:

Floating micro litter guidelines A set of ODV mandatory (ODV default) fields like: cruise, station, type, position...(green fields) A set of ODV additional fields (Guidance on Monitoring of Marine Litter in European Seas 2013, CEFAS, IFREMER, ARPA FVG) to describe marine micro-litter: mandatory in ODV microlitter: fields will be always present in ODV file and always filled (orange fields) additional/optional: fields will be always present in ODV file but could be empty (light orange fields)

Label/column header in datafile Conceptid Use Comments Cruise   mandatory (ODV Default) Station Type The suggestion is to use type "B". From manual: 'B' for bottle profile data. For time series and trajectories set to 'B' for small (<250) row groups YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.sss Start date/time. Format must be adapted to the date value (for example YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm is second are not available) Longitude [degrees_east] start point coordinates. Latitude [degrees_north] LOCAL_CDI_ID EDMO_code EDMO_CODE of the data centre distributing the data (the one connected to the CDI service) Bot. Depth [m] Field empty if no data MinimumObservationDepth [m] MINWDIST mandatory in ODV micro-litter MaximumObservationDepth [m] MAXWDIST SampleID:INDEXED_TEXT SSAMID01 SamplingEffort [Km] LENTRACK Survey distance from the beginning point in km Net_opening [cm] MTHWDTH1 Net opening of the intruments used.This information is needed for the calculation of the covered surface in cm.(e.g. diameter of the Ocean Race Pack filtering “cakes” or bongo/manta net opening ) Mesh_size [µm] MSHSIZE1 Mesh size of the filtering surface (e.g. manta or bongo net, filtering “cakes” of Ocean Race Pack,...) in µm Micro-litter_Type:INDEXED_TEXT MLITTYPW Type of the item (H01 SDN vocabulary) Micro-litter_Size:INDEXED_TEXT MLITSIZW Size classes (H03 SDN vocabulary) Micro-litter_Count [#] MLITCNTW Number of items collected. It's the official mandate from MSFD to provide the count of collected microplastics EventEndDateTime [YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.sss] ENDX8601 additional/optional End date/time EventEndLongitude [degrees_east] ENDXXLON    End point coordinates. Either End Lat/Lon or SamplingEffort are mandatory. EventEndLatitude [degrees_north] ENDXXLAT End point coordinates. Either End Lat/Lon or distance are mandatory. Micro-litter_Weight [g] MLDWWD01 Weight of the collected items, not mandatory Information in grams Micro-litter_Shape:INDEXED_TEXT MLITSHPW Shape of the item (H02 SDN vocabulary) Micro-litter_Color:INDEXED_TEXT MLITCOLW Colour classes (H04 SDN vocabulary) Micro-litter_Polymer_type:INDEXED_TEXT MLITPOLW Polymer type of the micro-litter (H05 SDN vacabulary) WMO_Sea_State [Dmnless] WMOCSSXX Sea conditions following the Douglas scale Wind_direction [degT] EWDAZZ01 Direction relative to true north from which the wind is blowing Wind_speed [m/s] EWSBZZ01 Sustained speed of the wind (distance moved per unit time by a parcel of air) parallel to the ground at a given place and time.

Floating micro litter guidelines Quality: Metadata Mikado syntactic and semantic checks of the CDIs Data manually checked with IFREMER support After the consolidation of the litter ODV, IFREMER recently started to adapt NEMO and Octopus for litter ODV generation and check

FLOATING MICRO-LITTER Litter data “hindrances” to the management FLOATING MICRO-LITTER BEACH SEAFLOOR data reported in original language Missing/ambiguous items reporting (e.g. more than 100…) multiple and/or mixed reference lists missing relevant info coordinates (beaches, surveys) Different protocols different survey parameters (lengths…) different mandatory units (count/weight) mandatory info with different granularity (categories/subcategories) different sampling Gears  NOT COMPARABLE RESULTS! (literature*) Missing relevant info coordinates/distance/widt h(“wing spread”) to report N.items/area *[Fiorentini et al., 1999; Kammann Up to now not relevant points

Most of workplan points are completed even if with some delays

DATA AVAILABLE TROUGH CDI (beach, micro and seafloor) DATA FORMATS http://www.emodnet-chemistry.eu/doi/documents/Guidelines-Litter_Data_EMODnetChemistry3_rev_20181128.pdf http://www.emodnet-chemistry.eu/doi/documents/Proposal-EMODnet-TG-ML-Micro-Litter-Data-Gathering-20180525.pdf DATA AVAILABLE TROUGH CDI (beach, micro and seafloor) http://emodnet-chemistry.maris2.nl/v_cdi_v3/search.asp