Legislation measures

Add monitoring marine litter as criteria in all the Environmental Surveillance Plans related to any kind of aquaculture activity.

Regulations Regulations

Photo: Vagelis Spyrakos Photo: Vagelis Spyrakos

One of the most important sections of the Spanish environmental evaluations are the Environmental Surveillance Plans (PVA due to the Spanish abbreviation). PVA are designed in the EIAS phase and they are applied when the production starts and while the facility is operating, allowing to correct the gaps in future EIAS and to make more accurate predictions. There is no national official guidelines regarding the aquaculture PVA, apart from the proposed methodology specific for offshore finfish farms, as they are regulated by each autonomous community. Nevertheless, the proposed solution was suggested for any kind of aquaculture type.

Relevant type of aquaculture:

Fish Shellfish Seaweed

Relevant sea basin:

Mediterranean

Relevant stage:

Monitoring and quantification

Related Barriers:

  • There is a lack of standardised criteria for environmental monitoring systems (e.g. in Spain each Autonomous Community deals with their own regulation).

  • There is a lack of knowledge to identify aquaculture items in marine litter collections.

  • There is a lack of monitoring systems for marine litter and for non-organic marine litter from aquaculture activities specifically.

  • There is a lack of specific data related to material losses from aquaculture activities.

  • There is a lack of specific information on the impact of marine litter from the aquaculture sector to showcase the problem.

  • The standardised forms used at a European level to collect information about the floating marine litter and the debris located on the seafloor are not complete or updated as they lack item categories that are frequently found in the Mediterranean Sea.

Related Good Practice:

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