This visualization product displays fishing related items density per trawl per year. EMODnet Chemistry included the gathering 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 fishing bottom trawl surveys. Densities have been calculated on each trawl and year using the following computation: Density of fishing related items (number of items per Km^2) = (total number of fishing related items)/(Swept area) Percentiles 50, 75 & 95 have been calculated taking into account data from all years. Fishing related items reference codes taken into account for this product and information on data processing and calculation are detailed in the document attached p22.
Seabed litter - Fishing related items density (Nb. Items/km2)