Documents Repository
Inventory nb: 202009185110
Willem van Loon (RWS/NL), Georg Hanke (JRC/EC), David Fleet (LKN-SH/DE), Stefanie Werner (UBA/DE), Jon Barry (CEFAS/UK), Jakob Strand (Aarhus University/DK), Johanna Eriksson (SwAM/SE), Francois Galgani (Ifremer), Dennis Gräwe (LUNG/DE), Marcus Schulz (Aquaecology/DE), Thomais Vlachogianni (Mio-ECSDE/GRE), Marek Press (HELCOM EN-Marine Litter/Estonia,) Eva Blidberg (Keep Sweden Tidy/SE) and Dennis Walvoort (WUR/NL) | |
The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, 2008/56/EC) requires that European threshold
values (TVs) for marine litter (descriptor 10) be defined. The MSFD Technical Group on Marine Litter
(TG ML) decided to focus on coastline litter (Criterion 1), often referred to as beach litter, in a first step,
since for this criterion a monitoring framework is in place and a substantial amount of fit-for-purpose
beach litter monitoring data is available at the European scale (see Hanke et al., 2019).
This report describes the rationale and method to obtain a European TV for beach litter, as developed
by Member States and other experts within the TG ML.
It was concluded by TG ML that a TV cannot be based on quantitative ecological and socio-economic
harm due to a lack of scientific data on harm caused by marine litter on beaches. Of the remaining
options, the use of the 10th percentile value of the total litter abundance dataset from all European
beaches in the baseline period 2015-2016 was selected and applied, as it was considered to be
sufficiently precautionary while being based on already available beach litter abundances in the EU.
The underlying baseline dataset was developed within the TG ML.
Calculation of the 10th percentile of the EU baseline dataset resulted in a value of 13 litter items per
100 m of coastline length. Further consideration of the 95% confidence intervals of the TV and
assessment value, respectively, led to a final TV of 20 litter items/100 m beach length, which
corresponds to the 15th percentile value of the EU baseline dataset. This TV is estimated by experts
from TG ML to reduce harm from beach litter to a sufficiently precautionary level. The methodology
acknowledges uncertainties in the underlying data which is considered in the proposal. The median
assessment value is compared with this TV for compliance checking.
It is acknowledged that achieving this TV will require substantial and sustained measures over a longer
period. Intermediate targets over time towards the proposed TV are proposed to support the
achievement of the TV. | |
Keywords: Macro Litter, Threshold | |
Type | Report |
Published | 18/09/2020 |
Source | JRC Scientific and Technical Reports |
Ref. | EUR 30347 EN |
Level | DE |
Language | EN |
Inv. nb: | 202009185110 Download: 500.0 Ko |