As part of the European Horizon Europe FOCCUS project (https://foccus-project.eu/), the metadata inventory of European coastal platforms has been extracted. The inventory was based on the following History and Latest products, downloaded from the CMEMS website (https://marine.copernicus.eu/fr/acces-donnees) at: 1) Global Ocean-In-Situ Near-Real-Time Observation, 2) Atlantic Iberian Biscay Irish Ocean-In-Situ Near Real Time Observations, 3) Mediterranean Sea-In-Situ Near Real Time Observations, 4) Atlantic-European North West Shelf-Ocean In-Situ Near Real Time Observations. To carry out this inventory, it was decided to target only coastal platforms, located less than 200km from the coast and at a depth of less than 400m. For mobile platforms, it was also decided to focus only on the first position in the file. This data must be located within 200 km of the coast and at a depth of less than 400 m. In this inventory, FerryBox platforms have all been considered as coastal platforms. The following platforms were extracted from the products: BO (Bottles), CT (CTD), DB (Drifting Buoys), FB (Ferry Box), GL (Gliders), HF (High Frequency Radar), MO (Mooring), PF (Profiling Float), TG (Tide Gauge) and XB (XBT). Once the metadata had been extracted from the files, duplicates were removed (files with the same names). Duplicate platforms of type _TS_ and _WS_ were merged (date and parameters). Latest‘ files have been merged with ’History" files. Missing metadata have been replaced in the Excel file by ‘Missing Data’. Some old dates were also revised by hand because they had been badly extracted, as well as some institution names that included special characters. Platforms located on estuaries/rivers/lakes/ponds have also been removed by hand. This inventory identified a total of 10,479 coastal platforms.

Particularly suited to the purpose of measuring the sensitivity of benthic communities to trawling, a trawl disturbance indicator (de Juan and Demestre, 2012, de Juan et al. 2009) was proposed based on benthic species life history traits to evaluate the sensibility of mega- and epifaunal community to fishing pressure known to have a physical impact on the seafloor (such as dredging and bottom trawling). The selected biological traits were chosen as they determine vulnerability to trawling: mobility, fragility, position on substrata, average size and feeding mode that can easily be related to the fragility, recoverability and vulnerability ecological concepts. Life history traits of species have been defined from the BIOTIC database (MARLIN, 2014) and from information given by Le Pape et al. (2007), Brindamour et al. (2009) and Garcia (2010). For missing life history traits, additional information from literature has been considered. The five categories retained are life history functional traits that were selected based on the knowledge of the response of benthic taxa to trawling disturbance (de Juan and Demestre, 2012). They reflect respectively the possibility to avoid direct gear impact, to benefit from trawling for feeding, to escape gear, to get caught by the net and to resist trawling/dredging action, each of these characteristics being either advantageous or sensitive to trawling. Then, to allow quantitative analysis, a score was assigned to each category: from low vulnerability (0) to high vulnerability (3). The five categories scores were then summed for each taxon (the highly vulnerable taxon could reach the maximum score is 15) and this value may be considered as a species index of sensitivity to trawling disturbance. The scores of 812 taxa commonly found in bottom trawl by-catch in the southern North Sea, English Channel and north-western Mediterranean were described.

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.

EMODnet Chemistry aims to provide access to marine chemistry datasets and derived data products concerning eutrophication, acidity and contaminants. The importance of the selected substances and other parameters relates to the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). This aggregated dataset contains all unrestricted EMODnet Chemistry data on eutrophication and acidity, and covers the Mediterranean Sea. Data were aggregated and quality controlled by the 'Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Hellenic National Oceanographic Data Centre (HCMR/HNODC)' in Greece. ITS-90 water temperature and water body salinity variables have also been included ('as are') to complete the eutrophication and acidity data. If you use these variables for calculations, please refer to SeaDataNet for the quality flags: https://www.seadatanet.org/Products/Aggregated-datasets. Regional datasets concerning eutrophication and acidity are automatically harvested, and the resulting collections are aggregated and quality controlled using ODV Software and following a common methodology for all sea regions (https://doi.org/10.13120/8xm0-5m67 ) Parameter names are based on P35 vocabulary, which relates to EMODnet Chemistry aggregated parameter names and is available at: https://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/search_nvs/P35/. When not present in original data, water body nitrate plus nitrite was calculated by summing all nitrate and nitrite parameters. The same procedure was applied for water body dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), which was calculated by summing all nitrate, nitrite, and ammonium parameters. Concentrations per unit mass were converted to a unit volume using a constant density of 1.025 kg/L. The aggregated dataset can also be downloaded as an ODV collection and spreadsheet, which is composed of a metadata header followed by tab separated values. This spreadsheet can be imported to ODV Software for visualisation (more information can be found at: https://www.seadatanet.org/Software/ODV ).

This visualization product displays the spatial distribution of the sampling effort (based on the start position of the sampling tow) over the six-years' period 2017-2022 from other specific 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 samplings carried out according to a very specific protocol such as the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) or Oceaneye. The spatial distribution was then determined by calculating the number of times each cell was sampled during the period 2017-2022, only taking into account the start position of the tows. 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 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.

The ORHAGO campaigns (Observation of the benthic aquatic resources of the Golfe de Gascogne) are designed to collect data on the composition, distribution and change in relative abundance of benthic fish fauna on the continental shelf (depth <100m) in November to December on a yearly basis. The ORHAGO survey was initiated in 2007 with the objective of developing a fishery-independent abundance index for flatfish species, with a particular focus on the common sole (Solea solea) of the Bay of Biscay. In accordance with the ICES-agreed gear for flatfish abundance surveys, ORHAGO employs a 4-meter-beam trawl with a chain mat, 50-millimeter mesh in the net, and 40-millimeter mesh in the cod-end. The sampling plan was designed to ensure full coverage of the common sole habitat in the Bay of Biscay during a period (November-December) for which fish behavior and distribution was suitable for obtaining an unbiased abundance index (young fish move offshore when coastal waters become colder and before the concentrations of the spawning season). The sampling design is a systematic sampling with 49 reference stations. The sampling design was validated in 2013 by the ICES Working Group on Beam Trawl Surveys (WGBEAM). Since 2013, the ORHAGO survey has been used to assess the status of the Bay of Biscay common sole stock (WGBIE, Working Group for the Bay of Biscay and the Iberian Waters Ecoregion).

Rocch, the french "mussel watch", provides chemical data for marine quality management. Once a year, trace metals, organic compounds (chlorinated, PAH, brominated flame retardants, perfluorinated compounds, organotins ...) are analysed in molluscs tissues to check chemical quality according to European Framework Directives and to Regional Seas Convention (OSPAR).

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 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 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 cigarette related 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); - Exclusion of surveys without associated length; - 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 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 (excluding UNEP-MARLIN protocol) 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.

The OceanGliders initiative (formerly EGO) is a gathering of several teams of oceanographers, interested in developing the use of gliders for ocean observations. OceanGliders started in Europe with members from France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The partners of OceanGliders have been funded by both European and national agencies to operate gliders for various purposes and at different sites. Coordinated actions are being set up for these sites in order to demonstrate the capabilities of a fleet of gliders for sampling the ocean, with a given scientific and/or operational objective. Gliders were developed since the 90’s to carry out in-situ observations of the upper 1km of the ocean, filling the gaps left by the existing observing systems. Gliders look like small autonomous robotic underwater vehicles which that uses an engine to change their buoyancy. While gliding from surface to about 1000 meters, gliders provide real-time physical and biogeochemical data along their transit.  They observe temperature, salinity, pressure, biogeochemical data or acoustic data. The OceanGliders GDAC handled at Ifremer/France aggregates the data and metadata from glider deployments provided by the DACs or PIs. The OceanGliders unique DOI publishes the quaterly snapshot of the whole GDAC content and preserves its successive quaterly versions (unique DOI for easy citability, preservation of quaterly versions for reproducibility).   The OceanGliders unique DOI references all individual glider deployment DOIs provided by the DACs or PIs, and with data in the GDAC. DACs or PIs may use the data processing chain published at http://doi.org/10.17882/45402 to generate glider NetCDF GDAC files.