1. 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
OGS
OGS
OGS
OGS

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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

7. 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,

8. Litter guidelines

9. Beach and Seafloor Litter guidelines

10. Beach and Seafloor Litter guidelines

11. 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

12. 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

13. Beach Litter guidelines

14. 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, )
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)

15. 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

16. Beach and Seafloor Litter guidelines

17. 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

18. Seafloor Litter guidelines
Data providers
Datras
XML
Medits
EMDChemistry

19. 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

20. 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

21. Floating micro litter guidelines

22. 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.

23. 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:

24. 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)

25. 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.

26. 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

27. 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

28. Most of workplan points are completed even if with some delays

29. DATA AVAILABLE TROUGH CDI (beach, micro and seafloor)
DATA FORMATS
DATA AVAILABLE TROUGH CDI (beach, micro and seafloor)