The EMBLAS II project pays special attention to marine litter. A workshop on assessment of Marine Litter in the Black Sea region, organized jointly by EMBLAS, the Black Sea Commission and the EC Joint Research Centre was held in April 2016 in Istanbul. Marine litter monitoring was performed during EMBLAS II Joint Black Sea surveys.

EMBLAS project activities on marine litter are conducted in close cooperation with the EC . JRC provides the link to the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive implementation in order to collaborate for achieving comparability across marine basins. The JRC Floating Macro Litter monitoring app for collection of data on floating litter was used during the NPMS/JOSS GE-UA and NPMS RF surveys. Guidance on marine litter monitoring developed by the MSFD Technical Group on Marine Litter is used by EMBLAS, assisting in the development of a marine litter monitoring network in all Black Sea countries and the development of recommendations for marine litter monitoring in the Black Sea region.

Beach Litter Monitoring

The European Environment Agency EEA has developed the Marine LitterWatch mobile app for monitoring of beach litter. The application can be used for monitoring by organized communities: find your beach at the on-line map, fill the protocol and send the data on marine litter monitoring to the European Environment Agency.

For downloading the software to your mobile device:

http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/coast_sea/marine-litterwatch/get-started/tools-and-guidelines-1

The training how to use this application is planned to be a part of the International Coastal Clean-up campaign to be held in September 2016.