Marine contaminant data: HarmoNIA project case study to analyse strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of large marine data infrastructures

Marine pollution due to a large and heterogeneous number of substances is a key environmental problem in the European seas. Availability of harmonized and validated data is pre-requisite for environmental status assessment and for adequate management, to achieve and maintain good environmental status (GES), as required by major European and regional directives. Based on the experience obtained in data collection, validation and analysis carried out in the framework of HarmoNIA project, an in-depth analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the current approach to manage data of marine contaminants is here presented.