• geo.be Metadata Catalog
  •  
  •  
  •  

Marine litter on the seafloor and on beaches dataset supporting the 2024 Belgian MSFD assessment of D10C1

This dataset is part of the 2024 Belgian submission for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) linked to descriptor 10, criterion 1. The seafloor dataset describes the litter gathered between 2012 and 2014 during beam trawl (BTS) fishery surveys in the Belgian part of the North Sea (BPNS). It provides the date, location and haul information, type of litter found and information on the size of the items. Additionally the ship name and cruise references are reported. The data is recorded following ICES guidelines allowing future inclusion in the ICES online database DATRAS (Database of Trawl Surveys). The sludge dataset describes the litter found between 2013 and 2016 on dredge disposal sites located in the coastal area of the Belgian part of the North Sea (BPNS). It provides the date, location, amount and type of litter as well as methodological information (e.g. mesh size). Additionally, the ship name and cruise references are reported. The beach litter dataset contains information on beach litter for the period 2016-2021, washed ashore on reference beaches (Oostende Halve Maan, Oostende Raversijde and, from 2020 onwards, Nieuwpoort Lombardsijde). 17 surveys (100m transects) have been executed until Spring 2021. Monitoring & data recording has been done according to the OSPAR Guideline for Monitoring Marine Litter on the beaches in the OSPAR maritime area (OSPAR, 2010). Besides the number of litter items, the category is also noted. The dataset is characterized by a high variation in the number of items. The data are under consideration to be reported to the OSPAR beach litter database, under the condition that the data cannot be used for trend analyses, because of the nature of the data.

Simple

Date (Creation)
2025-02-13
Date (Revision)
2026-09-14
Date (Publication)
2026-09-15
Date (Creation)
2016-05-19
Unique resource identifier
https://doi.org/10.24417/bmdc.be:dataset:2936
Identifier
http://metadata.naturalsciences.be / bmdc.be:dataset:2936

Date

Other citation details
This dataset is composed of the following sources: (1) Thomas Kerkhove, Francis Kerckhof (n.d.). Beach litter. (2) Thomas Kerkhove, Francis Kerckhof (n.d.). Beach litter Report MSFD 2024. (3) Bavo De Witte, David Vanavermaete, Katrien Verlé, Kris Hostens (n.d.). Composition and spatial distribution of litter on the seafloor yearly environmental monitoring surveys in the Belgian part of the North Sea Report MSFD 2024. (4) David Vanavermate (n.d.). Litter collected on the seafloor.
Custodian
  Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Directorate Natural Environment (OD Nature), Belgian Marine Data Centre (BMDC)
Vautierstraat 29 , Brussels , 1000 , Belgium
https://www.bmdc.be
Owner
  Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS)
Vautierstraat 29 , Brussels , 1000 , Belgium
https://www.naturalsciences.be
Publisher
  Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS)
Vautierstraat 29 , Brussels , 1000 , Belgium
https://www.naturalsciences.be
Keywords
  • Oceanographic geographical features
  • Reporting INSPIRE
  • Federal government
GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
  • Oceanographic geographical features
European Legislation Identifier
  • Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/138 of 21 December 2022 laying down a list of specific high-value datasets and the arrangements for their publication and re-use (Text with EEA relevance)
Marine Regions
  • Belgian part of the North Sea
  • Greater North Sea, incl. the Kattegat and the English Channel
GEMET - Concepts, version 4.2.1
  • marine monitoring
  • Marine Strategy Framework Directive
INSPIRE Registry: feature concepts
  • Oceanographic Geographical Features
INSPIRE Registry: Priority Datasets
  • Directive 2008/56/EC
Themes for open data catalogi in Belgium
  • Environment
NERC Vocabulary Server - C45 Vocabulary version 3.0
  • Properties and quantities of marine litter do not cause harm
INSPIRE Registry: Spatial scope
  • National
High-value dataset categories
  • Earth observation and environment
Eionet Central Data Repository
  • (Criteria) D10C1 - Litter (excluding micro-litter)
Use constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints
No conditions apply to access and use
Other constraints
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Access constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints
No limitations on public access.
Use limitation
No conditions apply to use.
Classification
Unclassified
Spatial representation type
Text, table
Metadata language
English
Topic category
  • Oceans
N
S
E
W
thumbnail


gml32:beginPosition
2020-01-01
Reference system identifier
http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/4258
Distribution format
  • application/vnd.ms-excel ( Unknown )

Distributor

Custodian
  Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Directorate Natural Environment (OD Nature), Belgian Marine Data Centre (BMDC)
Vautierstraat 29 , Brussels , 1000 , Belgium
https://www.bmdc.be
Version
Unknown
Transfer size
0.54667
OnLine resource
Beach litter Report MSFD 2024. Thomas Kerkhove, Francis Kerckhof ( WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link )

An HTTP link to view information

Distributor

Custodian
  Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Directorate Natural Environment (OD Nature), Belgian Marine Data Centre (BMDC)
Vautierstraat 29 , Brussels , 1000 , Belgium
https://www.bmdc.be
Version
Unknown
Transfer size
0.462071
OnLine resource
Composition and spatial distribution of litter on the seafloor yearly environmental monitoring surveys in the Belgian part of the North Sea Report MSFD 2024. Bavo De Witte, David Vanavermaete, Katrien Verlé, Kris Hostens ( WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link )

An HTTP link to view information

Distributor

Custodian
  Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Directorate Natural Environment (OD Nature), Belgian Marine Data Centre (BMDC)
Vautierstraat 29 , Brussels , 1000 , Belgium
https://www.bmdc.be
Name
application/vnd.ms-excel
Version
Unknown
Transfer size
0.066466
OnLine resource
Beach litter. Thomas Kerkhove, Francis Kerckhof ( WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download )

An HTTP link to download this dataset in Excel

Distributor

Custodian
  Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Directorate Natural Environment (OD Nature), Belgian Marine Data Centre (BMDC)
Vautierstraat 29 , Brussels , 1000 , Belgium
https://www.bmdc.be
Name
application/vnd.ms-excel
Version
Unknown
Transfer size
1.78901
OnLine resource
Litter collected on the seafloor. David Vanavermate ( WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download )

An HTTP link to download this dataset in Excel

OnLine resource
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) ( DOI )
Hierarchy level
Dataset

Conformance result

Date (Publication)
2010-12-08
Explanation
See the referenced specification
Pass
Yes
Statement
Beach litter counts follow the Guideline for Monitoring Marine Litter on the Beaches in the OSPAR maritime area (2010); litter items are noted on monitoring sheets against pre-defined categories. Seafloor litter is collected within the annual Beam Trawl Survey (BTS), at 5 fixed locations sampled yearly since 2011. Beach litter monitoring is carried out by RBINS under the OSPAR Coordinated Environmental Monitoring Programme; seafloor litter is collected within the Beam Trawl Survey (BTS), funded under the National Data Gathering Program. Beach litter: visual survey and manual counting along fixed beach transects, four times a year (seasonal); seafloor litter: 4m beam trawl hauls (BTS). Classification and tallying of litter items against the pre-defined OSPAR beach-litter categories.
File identifier
bmdc.be:dataset:2936 XML
Metadata language
English
Character set
UTF8
Hierarchy level
Dataset
Date stamp
2026-09-15T15:30:32.270Z
Metadata standard name
Geographic information -- Metadata
Metadata standard version
ISO 19115:2003/19139
Point of contact
  Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Directorate Natural Environment (OD Nature), Belgian Marine Data Centre (BMDC)
Vautierstraat 29 , Brussels , 1000 , Belgium
https://www.bmdc.be
 
 

Overviews

overview
large_thumbnail

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W
thumbnail


Keywords

Eionet Central Data Repository
(Criteria) D10C1 - Litter (excluding micro-litter)
European Legislation Identifier
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/138 of 21 December 2022 laying down a list of specific high-value datasets and the arrangements for their publication and re-use (Text with EEA relevance)
GEMET - Concepts, version 4.2.1
Marine Strategy Framework Directive marine monitoring
GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
Oceanographic geographical features
High-value dataset categories
Earth observation and environment
INSPIRE Registry: Priority Datasets
Directive 2008/56/EC
INSPIRE Registry: Spatial scope
National
INSPIRE Registry: feature concepts
Oceanographic Geographical Features
NERC Vocabulary Server - C45 Vocabulary version 3.0
Properties and quantities of marine litter do not cause harm
Themes for open data catalogi in Belgium
Environment

Provided by

logo
Access to the portal
Read here the full details and access to the data.

Associated resources

Not available


  •  
  •  
  •