Abstract
Summary Obejectives: The government has a responsibility under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive to monitor marine litter on the surface, pelagic, benthic and beach/coastal zones. The use and development of the Marine Conservation Societies (MCS) data collection and subsequent handling capabilities for beach litter provide the best and most cost effective method of collating and analysing data for both Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and OSPAR reporting purposes. The MCS have the existing infrastructure, man-power and time to which this project hopes to develop and capitalise on. The provision of training to officers following the newly developed OSPAR beach litter monitoring manual will ensure the collection and recording of high quality data, following the revised and amended OSPAR protocol. Key Customer Purpose: The MCS monitor over 300 beaches annually and on a voluntary basis. The also survey the 12 UK OSPAR beaches 4 times a year. The training will provide a high standard of data collection, the development of a new database will make uploading the data faster and easier, will ensure MEDIN compliance and has a clear methodology linked to OSPAR and EU requirements. The results will feed into developing a baseline of marine litter reaching our beaches as required by the MSFD, it can be interrogated to help determine sources of marine litter and can be used to monitor marine litter on beaches over time. We are developing our relationship with the MCS as a way of engaging `Big Society` to take responsibility for areas of work outside of government and project will enable the MCS to carry out data collection independently, to a higher quality and will make this data available for use by feeding into the MSFD and independently reporting to OSPAR on behalf of the UK, significantly reducing the resource burden for Defra. Once set up, it is expected that the results of this project will deliver for the reporting lifetime of the MSFD to 2020.
United Kingdom