Support measures

Install a network of drone users or become a part of existing networks to foster the use of drones to better detect plastic patches.

Support for monitoring Support for monitoring

Photo: Bertrand Bouchez Photo: Bertrand Bouchez

Relevant type of aquaculture:

Fish Shellfish Seaweed

Relevant sea basin:

Baltic

Relevant stage:

Monitoring and quantification

Related Barriers:

  • There is not enough structural support and resources available for environmental enhancement initiatives like beach clean-ups and recycling projects, which could yield a massive amount of useful information if collected in a standardised way and made public.

  • Transparency and data exchange between aquaculture companies / different sectors / Baltic Sea countries related to lost gear and SUP items is missing.

  • The (national/regional) monitoring programmes from the national governments are currently not sufficient as a knowledge base for the aquaculture sector.

  • Established monitoring approaches are often not linked with research and new technologies.

  • There is a lack of well-designed, practical and short to long-term monitoring schemes.

Related Good Practice:

M&Q GP3.1

Use drones to discover plastic patches

The DRONET, an international organisation founded to develop open source protocols and tools for marine surveys, is growing steadily with 17 core members (45 in total) from 26 organisations, of which 4 are from the Baltic Sea. Members contribute by sharing images they have captured from beach surveys to help train the algorithm and/or help develop and improve the survey methodology. Each member must first agree to the Marine Litter DRONET Charter, which ensures there is a common understanding of the open and collaborative nature of the network. Members on the network exchange survey findings and experiment with new approaches. They then can discuss they’re surveying approach with the other members and roughly once a quarter join a coordination forum with all members. The Baltic Sea members, e.g. the municipality of the Southern Swedish islands, are discussing to move their efforts towards selective monitoring of typical litter derived of fishing and aquaculture activities. They want to use the collected data for developing a programme of measures (PoM) in the frame of the respective descriptor for litter under the MSFD.