The aim of this report is to provide an overview of the available knowledge on marine litter originating from the aquaculture sector and reported in the marine environment of the North Sea region, the Mediterranean region, and the Baltic region.
In order to understand the potential sources of aquaculture litter, this report starts by providing an overview of the different types of aquaculture facilities in these areas.
Following the mapping results of the aquaculture facilities, this report provides a description of all aquaculture related items that can be observed as litter in the marine and coastal regions. This litter inventory was generated by a genuine screening of the available literature and litter databases (e.g. OSPAR, HELCOM, Marine Litter Watch) and will be extended during the course of the AQUA-LIT project on the basis of discussions with stakeholders and aquaculture farmers. Currently, this list consists of 64 different items of litter, of which 19 items are unique to the aquaculture industry.
Efforts were made to quantify the marine debris from the aquaculture sector using data from scientific publications. This provided an indication of the occurrence of this category of debris at a certain location, what can be used to inform stakeholders, aquaculture industry and policymakers. Sea basin maps were generated visualising information on the geographic position of aquaculture facilities, in combination with the quantitative data of aquaculture-related litter.