Distribution and sources of macrolitter on the seafloor in Belgian fisheries areas

Marine litter is recognized as a global environmental concern. Seafloor litter can provide important information to help assess the status of the marine ecosystem and is relatively easy to collect on a regular basis. The Belgian fisheries area covers different parts of the OSPAR Greater North Sea region and the Celtic Seas. In these regions, seafloor litter data were gathered by quantifying the litter items caught in the trawl net during two different fisheries surveys to investigate litter distribution on both regional and local scales. In the international beam trawl survey (BTS), covering e... Mehr ...