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.

Continuous sound is one of the criteria for defining good ecological status for descriptor 11 relating to the pressure of noise generated by human activities in the context of the MSFD (D11C2). 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 continuous anthropogenic sounds must not exceed levels harmful to populations of marine animals. These criteria are assessed at the scale of the marine sub-region for the "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 D11C2 is the spatial distribution of annual ambient noise for the one-third octave band centered on 125 Hz (D11C2.2). The pressure considered for the evaluation of the criterion is the noise generated by maritime traffic, mainly in its trade and transport component which is subject to regulatory oversight by automatic identification system (AIS). The data used for the calculation of this indicator are in situ noise data (MAMBO device) and maritime traffic data (Lloyd’s).

This visualization product displays the cigarette related items abundance of marine macro-litter (> 2.5cm) per beach per year from non-MSFD monitoring surveys, research & cleaning operations related to UNEP-MARLIN data only. 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: - Selection of surveys from non-MSFD 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 without associated length; - 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 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. Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account cigarette related items from other sources data (UNEP-MARLIN protocol only) 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.

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.