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OSPAR annual report on dumping and placement of wastes or other matter at sea in 2014

Executive Summary

Data are available on ODIMS via:  https://odims.ospar.org/documents/504

OSPAR’s Environmental Impact of Human Activities Committee (EIHA) 2014 adopted a new reporting format for Dumping and placement[1] of wastes or other matter at sea (Agreement 2014-17). This Annual Report provides an overview of:

  • the quantities of material deposited at sea (per country and overall);

  • the quantities of contaminated material (above national upper action level) deposited at sea (per country and overall);

  • the quantities of material dumped;

  • the quantities of material placed;

  • the quality of material deposited at sea;

  • comparisons to earlier years (per country and overall).

Full Report

Reports were received from Belgium (BE), Denmark (DK), France (FR), Germany (DE), Iceland (IS), Ireland (IE), the Netherlands (NL), Norway (NO), Portugal (PT), Sweden (SE), Spain (ES) and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK).

Reports indicate that the total amount of material dredged and dumped or placed at sea in the whole OSPAR Maritime Area appears to be broadly in line within the variability of data reported from the previous four years.

Contaminant loads appear to have gradually declined since 2010. This apparent trend is being investigated in more detail by OSPAR’s working group ICG-Trend for the Intermediate Assessment 2017.

The amount of material containing one or more determinands exceeding the upper national action level accounts for approximately 2,2% of the total amount of dredged material deposited at sea.

The amount of material used beneficially, at roughly 37,2 million tonnes, is equivalent to more than one quarter of the total amount of material managed during 2014. This represents a significant increase (33%) with respect to the previous year.

In 2014 a total of 356 deposit sites were reported by Contacting Parties (351 for dredged material and 5 for inert material), with an average amount deposited per site of 416 000 tonnes, ranging from 14 tonnes to more than 19 million tonnes.

[1] Placement only relates to dredged material in this case, i.e. placement of dredged material for beneficial uses or deposited in CDFs.

Locations of dumping or placement of waste or other matter activities in 2014. Available via https://odims.ospar.org/layers/geonode:ospar_dumping_at_sea_2014_01_001