There is a strong demand for global marine debris monitoring expressed by the research community, and also by policy- and decision-making bodies and the private sector.
A global and integrated marine debris monitoring system is critical to enable scientists to assess marine debris pollution true extent and provide informed guidance for effective actions including setting targets and develop, implement and adjust policies. Consolidating the baseline knowledge in marine debris distribution on national, regional, and global levels is necessary for operational assessments.
Furthermore, an integrated marine debris dataset is also essential as input but also to improve and evaluate numerical model simulations, which can then be used to assess the effectiveness of policies through “what if” scenarios, as with the Digital Twins of the Ocean.
Some marine debris monitoring programs have already been initiated through action plans of the Regional Seas Programmes (e.g., OSPAR), the G7 Navigation Plan and the G20 Implementation Framework. Actions are also conducted at national (e.g. CSIRO, NOAA, SOA) and regional or inter regional (e.g., European CommissionUnion Marine Strategy Framework Directive) levels. Several agencies of the UN are supporting on-going efforts to develop global marine debris monitoring: International Maritime Organization through the Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP) Working Group 40, UNEP through the Global Partnership on Plastic Pollution and Marine Litter (GPML), the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) through its NUTEC Plastics initiative.
The Integrated Marine Debris Observing System (IMDOS) is being developed following the OceanObs'19 Community White Paper11, as a joint initiative of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Blue Planet Initiative and UNEP GPML. Furthermore, IMDOS works hand in hand with the Communities of Practice established for the development of the GPML Digital Platform12 to ensure the alignment of objectives and outcomes.