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Datasets / Ifremer

Seafloor litter - Sampling locations 2006/2024 v2025

Marine debris

This visualization product displays the location of all the surveys present in the EMODnet marine litter database (MLDB). The different fishing gears used are represented by different colors.

EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Since the beginning of 2018, data of seafloor litter collected by international fish-trawl surveys 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 (OSPAR and MEDITS protocols) and reference lists used on a European scale. Moreover, within the same protocol, different gear types are deployed during bottom trawl surveys.

Unlike other EMODnet seafloor litter products, all trawls surveyed since 2006 are included in this map even if the wingspread and/or the distance are unknown. Only surveys with an unknown number of items were excluded from this product.

More information on data processing and calculation are detailed in the attached 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 Marine Litter Database for this area.

Data and resources

Additional information

Temporal extent2006-10-01 – 2024-03-21
Date (creation)2025-02-27
StatusonGoing
Update frequencyasNeeded
Metadata languageen
LicenseCC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source metadataISO 19115 XML
Last updated2026-11-04
Created2026-11-04
APIpackage_show