The Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (TF HTAP) is an international scientific cooperative effort to improve the understanding of the intercontinental transport of air pollution across the Northern Hemisphere. TF HTAP was organized in 2005 under the auspices of the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP Convention) and reports to the Convention’s EMEP Steering Body. However, participation is open to all interested experts, both inside and outside the UNECE region. TF HTAP organizes scientific cooperation in the areas of emissions inventories and projections, analysis of ambient monitoring and remote sensing, global and regional modeling, and impact assessment to understand the intercontinental flows of ozone and its precursors, fine particles and their components, mercury, and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The main questions of interest to the TF HTAP relate to the benefits of international cooperation to decrease air pollution emissions: - How do air pollution concentrations (or deposition) in one region of the world change as emissions change in other regions or the world? - How do changes in emissions outside a region affect the health, ecosystem, and climate impacts of air pollution within a given region? - How does the feasibility of further emissions control differ in different regions of the world?

Intermediate Assessment 2017 - Seabed Litter - Litter is widespread on the seafloor across the area assessed, with plastic being the predominant material encountered. In the areas assessed, higher amounts of litter are found in the Eastern Bay of Biscay, Southern Celtic Seas and English Channel relative to the north of the Greater North Sea and Celtic Seas.

Impulsive or transient sounds of short duration and of high intensity constitute one of the criteria for defining good ecological status for descriptor 11 relating to the pressure of noise generated by human activities within the framework of the MSFD (D11C1). Good ecological status for sound energy is achieved when the risks of acoustic disturbance, excess mortality from sound exposure and reduction in communication distances of mysticetes are cumulatively low or moderate. For this, the spatial distribution, the temporal extent and the acoustic levels of the sources of anthropogenic impulsive sound must not exceed the levels harmful to the populations of marine animals. These criteria are evaluated at the scale of the marine sub-region for the “English Channel and North Sea”, “Celtic Seas” and “Western Mediterranean” regions; and at the scale of the "North" and "South" subdivisions in the "Bay of Biscay" sub-region. One of the indicators selected for the evaluation of criterion D11C1 is the distribution of the acoustic levels of impulsive emissions (D11C1.3). The pressures considered for the evaluation of the criterion are: acoustic emissions from air guns ; acoustic emissions from impulsive sources other than air guns ; emissions from non-impulsive (transient) sources ; underwater explosions ; emissions due to pile driving. The data used for the calculation of this indicator are declarative emissions data traced by the operators of the activities generating impulsive noise.