Chemistry

On 18-20 January 2023 EMODnet Chemistry participated in a workshop of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) on the revision of the format for marine litter data in the ICES Environmental Database. EMODnet Chemistry brought its expertise having developed the EMODnet micro-litter data format in collaboration with the MSFD Technical Group on Marine Litter (TGML) since 2017. Marine litter data trawls collected by ICES are already available via EMODnet Chemistry. The hybrid event took place in Copenhagen (Denmark) and online.

Standardised, integrated and validated data on contaminants freely available on EMODnet Chemistry were used for a new study recently published in Marine Pollution Bulletin that focuses on the Eastern Mediterranean. The paper is about a new method to improve the quality control of data on pollutants in marine sediments.

The EMODnet Secretariat team wishes you peace, joy, good health and prosperity throughout the coming year. Thank you for your continued support and partnership. We look forward to working with you in 2023!

The EMODnet Steering Committee (SC) met with EMODnet coordinators and technical experts at its 17th meeting on 7 and 8 November 2022, with a key focus on the upcoming centralization of all EMODnet services into one unified EMODnet data service. Other topics included highlights from the seven EMODnet thematic lots and data ingestion, including latest outputs and partnerships planning for two upcoming EMODnet flagship events in 2023, namely the 3rd edition of the EMODnet Open Sea Lab hackathon, kicking off on 7 March 2023 and the EMODnet Open Conference & Jamboree, taking place in late Autumn 2023. The EC Marine Knowledge Expert Group joined the 17th EMODnet SC Open Session and also met for a second closed session on 29th November 2022.

To improve the assessment of marine pollution, EMODnet Chemistry has undertaken a thorough revision of the questionnaire used to obtain information on sampling, data analysis methods, and validation procedures for contaminants in seawater, sediment and biota. The revised questionnaire was recently sent out to the network of laboratories that provide data to EMODnet Chemistry in order to improve and update the available information. Despite advances in legislation, there is still relatively little implementation of the requirements of the current directives and protocols.

From 26 to 28 October 2022, EMODnet Chemistry was in Constanța (Romania) at the hybrid conference MARBLUE 2022 - Blue Growth: Challenges and Opportunities for the Black Sea. The aim of this international conference was to contribute to the protection of the Black Sea by supporting sustainable development in a multidisciplinary way. Free and open access to aggregated, standardised, validated data and data products for the Black Sea is available in the form of regional and global data collections and maps for eutrophication, contaminants, and marine litter through the EMODnet Chemistry web data portal.

This virtual workshop, co-organized and led by the non-profit organisation HUB Ocean and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO) in its role as coordinator of the Ocean Decade, aims to define potential use cases that will explore the sharing of industry-owned ocean data with the ocean research community to improve ocean models and science. The workshop will take place on 22-23 November 2022 and will convene a dozen scientific partners working in the ocean-climate modelling domain. It will contribute to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development addressing Ocean Decade Challenge #5, which aims to “enhance understanding of the ocean-climate nexus and generate knowledge and solutions to mitigate, adapt and build resilience to the effects of climate change across all geographies and at all scales.”

On 20-21 October 2022, EMODnet together with EC DG MARE organised a workshop on “EMODnet marine data for the offshore renewable energy sector in the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea”. The workshop was attended by over 80 offshore renewable energy experts with representatives from diverse sectors including research, policy, marine data services and non-governmental agencies. EMODnet was well represented thematic experts from geology, seabed habitats, bathymetry, chemistry, human activities, Data Ingestion, Central Portal and the EMODnet Secretariat. The agenda included a demonstration of the latest EMODnet services, use cases of how the offshore renewable energy sector uses EMODnet data and data products, and dialogues on data requirements and data sharing. This workshop was the second in a series, with the first workshop focusing on the Northeast Atlantic, North Sea and Baltic Sea.

In 2021, the Commission for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea, also known as the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), asked all countries that are signatories to the Helsinki Convention to submit 2016-2021 data from national coastal litter monitoring to EMODnet Chemistry. Since then, EMODnet Chemistry ingested, harmonised and validated data collected between 2016 and 2021 on 141 beaches in 9 countries. The data will be used to produce the beach litter indicator in the third State of the Baltic Sea' holistic assessment report (HOLAS).

The report and presentations are now available from a Coastal workshop convened by EMODnet and Copernicus Marine Service on 22nd September 2022. The meeting brought together experts from the Copernicus Marine Service, EMODnet, European Commission DG Defis, DG MARE and CINEA. Discussions focused on the latest coastal marine data and data products offered by each service, existing gaps and requirements for future evolution, synergies and alignments across data services and with wider European and global initiative. The agenda, minutes and presentations are available on the EC Maritime Forum.

EMODnet Chemistry Coordinator OGS, Italy was an author of the presentation titled “Coastline Litter in Europe - Data for policy” given by Georg Hanke of the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) at the latest edition of the 7th International Marine Debris Conference which took place on 18-23 September 2022 in Busan, Republic of Korea. This follows a long and successful collaboration between EMODnet Chemistry and JRC to provide the most comprehensive marine litter database in Europe. The presentation was part of the conference general topic “Stories and lessons from around the world: how monitoring can help develop measures to combat marine litter”.

Applications to the Call for Decade Actions No. 04/2022 are now open. The Call is an invitation for worldwide partners to request endorsement for transformative Decade Actions that can contribute to the Ocean Decade vision on Challenge 6 – Coastal Resilience and on Challenge 8 – Digital Representation of the Ocean. Details are available on the Ocean Decade website's dedicated webpage.

EMODnet Chemistry has significantly expanded the new edition of the guidelines entitled "Updated guidelines for SeaDataNet ODV production: Eutrophication & Contaminants". The recently published manual explains to data providers which standards, tools and software provided by the SeaDataNet infrastructure are adopted by EMODnet Chemistry to harmonise and validate data. A list of the most important problems and common errors and how to solve or avoid them is also part of the guide. In addition to information on the correct submission of data for pollutants and eutrophication, this edition includes a full section on ocean acidity.

On 22 September the second EMODnet-Copernicus Marine Thematic workshop on Coastal issues took place, two years after the first workshop in June 2020. The meeting brought together EMODnet and Copernicus Marine Service experts together with inter-DG representation from the European Commission and CINEA. The workshop focused on dialogue between the two EU marine data services EMODnet and Copernicus Marine Service with a specific focus on the coastal area. Existing capabilities and emerging areas for collaboration across EMODnet themes and between EMODnet and Copernicus Marine were assessed, and concrete joint contributions to European (e.g. EU DTO, Green Deal) and global (UN Ocean Decade) initiatives/strategies were defined. A report will follow on the EC Maritime Forum.

EMODnet Chemistry has provided expert input to a consultation on a new EC initiative on ‘Chemical safety – better access to chemicals data for safety assessments’. This initiative aims to improve access to chemicals data by removing technical and administrative obstacles, to make it easier to access and use all available data and will increase transparency. EMODnet is well-placed to contribute as a leading EU marine data service, with EMODnet Chemistry providing standardised, harmonised and FAIR marine water quality data, amongst other thematic areas spanning pollution, eutrophication, marine litter and more. Read more about the initiative and EMODnet Chemistry’s response in the link below.

During the summer, EMODnet Chemistry enthusiastically participated as a tutor in various training courses and summer schools. EMODnet Chemistry Coordinator National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics - OGS (Italy) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research - AWI (Germany) participated in the training course 'Practical Introductory Course to Marine Monitoring Hardware and Procedures', held at OGS headquarters in Italy, from 20-24 June 2022, as part of the Interreg SHAREMED Mediterranean - TransNational On-Demand Actions project. The synergies between SHAREMED and EMODnet Chemistry were presented during the SHAREMED Summer School 'Tools, Databases and Knowledge to address and assess pollution and environmental threats in the Mediterranean waters' from 27 June to 1 July 2022 at IPMA - Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere, Lisbon, Portugal. The EMODnet data infrastructure was also presented at the Blue Growth Summer School "The Copernicus Marine Service as a supporting tool to foster Sustainable Blue Economy", organised by the OGS from 2 to 8 July 2022.

On 12 July 2022, during the launch event of 'The Science We Need for the Mediterranean Sea We Want' (SciNMeet) Programme, Alessandra Giorgetti of the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics (OGS, Italy) and Sissy Iona of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR, Greece) presented EMODnet, with a special focus on Chemistry and Ingestion data infrastructures. EMODnet is involved in the activities of Task Team 6 (TT6) of SciNMeet on Data Sharing. TT6 is facilitated by A. Giorgetti, Scientific Coordinator of EMODnet Chemistry.

Wish to know more about EMODnet and its results? 2021 saw the beginning of a new era. Download the EMODnet Annual Report 2021 to learn about the main achievements, key facts and figures, partnerships, new products and services, the EMODnet Open Conference and Jamboree 2021, wider events and much more!

The Copernicus Marine Service is a key user of EMODnet in situ harmonised, standardized and integrated data, to validate satellite-derived data and as input to models. In the framework of the MoU signed between EMODnet Chemistry and the In Situ Thematic Assembly Centre (INSTAC) of Copernicus Marine Service, the version 2018 of the six EMODnet regional quality controlled and aggregated datasets for eutrophication and acidification were integrated in the INSTAC BioGeoChemical products. These large, integrated EMODnet data are the result of extensive work in marine data management, harmonization, standardization conducted by EMODnet, in collaboration with SeaDataNet.

An up-to-date, harmonised and validated data set for beach litter has recently been released to the Technical Group on Marine Litter (TGML) for the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) by EMODnet Chemistry. Twenty-two Member States corrected, updated and resubmitted these data spanning from 2015 to 2020 with EMODnet Chemistry providing the harmonised database in collaboration with the EC Joint Research Centre. Currently TGML has been using this data set to define the new EU quantitative baselines for beach litter. These are of great relevance to the MSFD implementation programs of monitoring and mitigation measures.