Seafloor Marine Litter from UK EEZ zones between 2012 and 2017

This data set was used to assess the density of litter in the seafloor for the MSFD indicator assessment that was completed in 2018 and published in 2019 at https://moat.cefas.co.uk/pressures-from-human-activities/marine-litter/seafloor-litter. The data contained counts of each type of litter category. The data is contained in the file, litter 2017 new.csv. Details on what the data columns mean are shown in the readme file. Data is only from the UK EEZ zone. This is made up of the Greater North Sea (GNS), the Northern Celtic Sea (NCS) and the Southern Celtic Sea (SCS). The GNS and the NCS data were collected from 2012-2015. The SCS data were collected from 2012-2014. The data were collected from fishing surveys. These surveys used two types of trawl: the GNS and the NCS surveys used GOV trawls, whereas the SCS survey used an Otter trawl. These types of trawls have different abilities to catch litter and data from different type of trawls are not directly comparable. Therefore the GNS and the NCS data were treated separately in the assessment to the SCS data.