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ATLAS Deliverable 3.1: Good Environmental Status and Biodiversity Assessments
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This ATLAS project deliverable explores how Good Environmental Status for deep-sea habitats can be defined under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, focusing on four descriptors: biodiversity, commercial species, seafloor integrity, and marine litter. The report reviews progress with deep-sea indicator development and discusses assessment approaches for these ecologically critical but poorly monitored environments.
This deliverable aims to explore how best to define Good Environmental Status (GES) for deep-sea habitats, to review progress with indicator development for the deep sea, and to explore how better to assess GES in the deep sea considering four of the eleven Descriptors included in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD): D1 Biodiversity, D3 Commercial species, D6 Seafloor integrity and D10 Marine Litter.
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Compilation and assessment of selected anthropogenic pressures inthe context of the Marine Strategy Framework DirectiveDescriptor 10 - marine litter
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This European assessment compiled and analyzed monitoring data on marine litter as part of implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) Descriptor 10, defining Good Environmental Status indicators and assessing spatial and temporal trends in plastic pollution across European marine waters. Standardized marine litter monitoring under MSFD provides the evidence base needed to evaluate whether EU policies are succeeding in reducing ocean plastic contamination.
Sea floor litter monitored using catches of the International Bottom Trawl Survey
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This report presents seafloor litter monitoring data collected during the 2015 International Bottom Trawl Survey Q1, updating a Dutch program that has tracked marine litter distribution and composition since 2013. The results provide spatial distribution information on seafloor litter across the North Sea as part of European Marine Strategy Framework Directive monitoring.
A MSFD complementary approach for the assessment of pressures, knowledge and data gaps in Southern European Seas: The PERSEUS experience
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Researchers investigated leaching of chemicals from five virgin polymer types (PE, PP, PVC, HDPE, PS) into seawater and freshwater under controlled conditions. All plastic types released measurable quantities of additives including stabilizers, plasticizers, and antioxidants, with PVC leaching the greatest diversity and mass of chemical compounds.
Are we even close? Five years marine litter ingestion monitoring in loggerhead turtles along Italian coast reveals how far we are from the Good Environmental Status
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This five-year monitoring study of marine litter ingestion in loggerhead sea turtles along Italian coasts found widespread plastic ingestion and evaluated five scenarios for defining Good Environmental Status (GES) thresholds under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The study proposes a new threshold—less than 33% of turtles having more than 0.05 g of ingested plastic in the GI tract—as a practical benchmark for Mediterranean GES implementation.
Monitoring of seafloor litter on the Dutch continental shelf : International Bottom Trawl Survey 2024, Dutch Beam Trawl Survey 2023
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This report presents seafloor litter monitoring data from Dutch Continental Shelf surveys using bottom trawls, finding plastics comprising 83–87% of all litter and a mean density of 68 items/km² in recent years. The study notes that trawl catchability for litter is estimated below 5%, meaning current estimates substantially undercount true seafloor litter abundance.
Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.