Sea bed sediment maps for the 4 marine sub-regions prepared as part of the initial evaluation of the MSFD (Marine Strategy Framework Directive).

ROCCH, the French Chemical Contaminant Monitoring Network,  regularly provides a new official dataset for assessing the chemical quality status of French coastal waters. Concentrations of trace metal elements and organic compounds were measured in samples of marine surface sediments collected in the English Channel and Bay of Biscay, during 3 campaigns over a period of 6 years. Samples of fine sediment material, from 200 to 250 monitoring stations, were freeze-dried and sieved prior to analysis. The Results were submitted to the international database of ICES (for the OSPAR Convention).

Good Environmental Status assessment (GES) for descriptor 8 (contaminants, D8) of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) is reached when concentrations of contaminants are at levels not giving rise to pollution effects. It is described by 4 criteria among which the first one focus on the concentration of the contaminants in the environment (criteria 1 of the D8, D8C1). The environmental status for D8 in France includes assessment of contaminant concentrations in sediment, bivalves, fish, birds, mammals to cover the French marine area the continental shelf from the coast line). The 8 tables below present the assessment of the chemical contamination in sediment and bivalves on the coastal area of the 4 French marine subregions for D8 as part of the 2024 GES assessment. These tables report the status and temporal trends of each station x matrice x substance triplet in each of the 4 French marine subregions. Explanation on how to read the cells is given in the “read file”. The environmental assessment for D8 in France can be found in Mauffret al., 2023 (DOI:10.13155/97214). It includes 17 national indicator assessments, 4 OSPAR indicators and integrated assessment in selected assessment units at the level of the criteria 1 and 2. 

EMODnet Chemistry aims to provide access to marine chemistry data sets and derived data products concerning eutrophication, ocean acidification and contaminants. The chemicals chosen 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 potential hazardous substances, despite the fact that some data might not be related to pollution (e.g. collected by deep corer). Temperature, salinity and additional parameters are included when available. It covers the Mediterranean Sea. Data were harmonised and validated by the ‘Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Hellenic National Oceanographic Data Centre (HCMR/HNODC)’ in Greece. The dataset contains water, sediment and biota profiles and timeseries. The temporal coverage is 1974–2022 for water measurements, 1971–2023 for sediment measurements and 1979-2023 for biota measurements. Regional datasets concerning contaminants are automatically harvested and the resulting collections are harmonised and validated using ODV Software and following a common methodology for all sea regions ( https://doi.org/10.6092/8b52e8d7-dc92-4305-9337-7634a5cae3f4 ). Parameter names are based on P01 vocabulary, which relates to BODC Parameter Usage Vocabulary and is available at: https://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/search_nvs/P01/ . The harmonised dataset can be downloaded as as an ODV spreadsheet, which is composed of a metadata header followed by tab separated values. This spreadsheet can be imported into ODV Software for visualisation (more information can be found at: https://www.seadatanet.org/Software/ODV ). In addition, the same dataset is offered also as a txt file in a long/vertical format, in which each P01 measurement is a record line. Additionally, there are a series of columns that split P01 terms into subcomponents (substance, CAS number, matrix...).This transposed format is more adapted to worksheet applications (e.g. LibreOffice Calc).

The Arcachon Bay is a unique and ecologically important meso-tidal lagoon on the Atlantic coast of south-west France. The Arcachon Bay has the largest area of dwarf seagrass (Z. noltei) in Europe, the extent of which was stable in their extent between the 1950s and 1990s, but a decline in seagrass was observed in mid-2000. The decline of Zostera (seagrass) may have a significant impact on sedimentation in this coastal ecosystem rich in marine life. Interface cores were collected in September 2022 to determine sediment and mass accumulation rates (SAR, MAR) in the Arcachon Bay. Ten study areas were selected, distributed over most of the areas where seagrass meadows are actually observed. Two sites were visited each time, one with the presence of Zostera noltei in good condition (Healthy) and the other where the sediment was bare (Bare). Maximum water heights during spring tides range from 3.44 m for the deepest site (Garrèche) to 2.09 m for the shallowest site (Fontaines). A total of 20 sediment cores were sampled and carefully extruded every 1 cm from the top to the bottom of the core. The sediment layers were used to determine dry bulk density and selected radioisotope activities: DBD, 210Pb, 226Ra, 137Cs, 228Th and 40K expressed as %K). 

This visualization product displays the total abundance of marine macro-litter (> 2.5cm) per beach per year from non-MSFD monitoring surveys, research & cleaning operations. 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 surveys from non-MSFD 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). - Exclusion of surveys without associated length; - 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 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. Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account other sources 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 they don't exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.

This product displays for Lead, median values since 2012 that have been measured per matrix and are present in EMODnet regional contaminants aggregated datasets, v2024. The median values ranges are derived from the following percentiles: 0-25%, 25-75%, 75-90%, >90%. Only "good data" are used, namely data with Quality Flag=1, 2, 6, Q (SeaDataNet Quality Flag schema). For water, only surface values are used (0-15 m), for sediment and biota data at all depths are used.

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 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 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; - 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 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 product displays for Tributyltin, positions with values counts that have been measured per matrix for each year and are present in EMODnet regional contaminants aggregated datasets, v2022. The product displays positions for every available year.

This visualization product displays the plastic bags 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; - Selection of plastic bags 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); - Normalization of survey lengths to 100m & 1 survey / year: in some case, 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 plastic bags related items of the survey (normalized by 100 m) = Number of plastic bags related items of the survey x (100 / survey length) Then, this normalized number of plastic bags related items is summed to obtain the total normalized number of plastic bags related items for each survey. Finally, the median abundance of plastic bags related items for each beach and year is calculated from these normalized abundances of plastic bags related items 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 plastic bags related items from 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 they don't exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.