Baltic Sea - Contaminants aggregated datasets 1972/2023 v2025

EMODnet Chemistry aims to provide access to marine chemistry datasets and derived data products concerning eutrophication, acidity and contaminants. The importance of the selected substances and other parameters relates to the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). This aggregated dataset contains all unrestricted EMODnet Chemistry data on potential hazardous substances, despite the fact that some data might not be related to pollution (e.g. collected by deep corer). Temperature, salinity and additional parameters are included when available. It covers the Baltic Sea. Data were harmonised and validated by the ‘Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI)’ in Sweden.
The dataset contains water, sediment and biota profiles. The temporal coverage is 1987–2022 for water measurements, 1974–2022 for sediment measurements and 1972-2023 for biota measurements.
Regional datasets concerning contaminants are automatically harvested and the resulting collections are harmonised and validated using ODV Software and following a common methodology for all sea regions ( https://doi.org/10.6092/8b52e8d7-dc92-4305-9337-7634a5cae3f4 ). Parameter names are based on P01 vocabulary, which relates to BODC Parameter Usage Vocabulary and is available at: https://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/search_nvs/P01/ .
The harmonised dataset can be downloaded as as an ODV spreadsheet, which is composed of a metadata header followed by tab separated values. This spreadsheet can be imported into ODV Software for visualisation (more information can be found at: https://www.seadatanet.org/Software/ODV ). In addition, the same dataset is offered also as a txt file in a long/vertical format, in which each P01 measurement is a record line. Additionally, there are a series of columns that split P01 terms into subcomponents (substance, CAS number, matrix...).This transposed format is more adapted to worksheet applications (e.g. LibreOffice Calc).