INDICIT - Implementation of the indicator “Impacts of marine litter on sea turtles and biota”

The European Union’s Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) aims to achieve the protection of marine biodiversity and the sustainable use of the marine environment across Europe, with the objective of achieving Good Environmental Status (GES) of the EU's marine waters by 2020 on the basis of 11 qualitative descriptors.

Marine litter is one of the most important human-caused pressures on marine environment, leading to the establishment of the descriptor 10 (D 10) for which GES is achieved when “properties and quantities of marine litter do not cause harm to the coastal and marine environment”. The D 10, as the other qualitative descriptors, covers broad topics. That is why a set of detailed criteria and indicators are needed to help Member States determine what each descriptor means in practice and measure progress.

Plastic items compose more than 80% of the litter observed offshore and on beaches. They are omnipresent and accumulate for years to centuries in the seas. Marine taxa such as sea turtles have wide geographic range (Atlantic and Mediterranean), use different habitat compartments (neritic to pelagic) and are known to ingest marine debris. One of the indicator associated to GES Descriptor 10 is “Trends in the amount and composition of litter ingested by marine animals”. Today, the initial assessment of GES and the methodological standard procedures for the use of this indicator urgently need to be implemented in order to meet the regional (e.g. within RSCs) and global MSFD requirements and allow to evaluate the efficiency of practical measures such as limitation of plastic use in UE countries. The INDICIT project aims to develop the methodology to make operational the indicator of the amount of debris ingested by the sea turtle Caretta caretta and other marine animals, such as fish.

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