The European Environment Agency’s Zero Pollution Monitoring Outlook 2025 notes that Europe is not yet on track to meet targets for marine pollution mitigation and that pollutants come both from land and sea. But the overall message for all sectors is the same:
To make significant progress towards zero pollution targets, the EU needs to consume less–including virgin materials from both EU and other sources; consume more responsibly such as using commodities and products with a lower environmental impact or greater durability; and consume differently, by measures like embracing the sharing economy and public transport.
Marine environments and marine life are having to cope with pollution from a number of sources: plastics, discharge from vessels, waste runoff from agriculture, aquaculture and industrial organizations, and noise and light, for starters.
Noise Pollution Underwater
Noise pollution from human activities — particularly maritime traffic, offshore industries and specific military activities — poses a significant threat to marine life. This noise can lead to behavioural and physiological changes in animals, habitat loss and even extinction risk. In 2024, the AquaPLAN project was launched to address the impacts of light and noise pollution on biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems in European waters and develop interdisciplinary strategies for their management.
Shipping is known to be a primary contributor to anthropogenic, continuous underwater radiated noise (URN) in the oceans. However, short- and medium-term progress in reducing shipping-related underwater noise remains relatively slow, due to the gradual replacement of noisy ships and growing global traffic.
The European Maritime Safety Agency’s (EMSA) NAVISON project has developed forecast models to evaluate the impact of various mitigation strategies for reducing Underwater Radiated Noise (URN). The analysis showed that an implementation of technical and operational URN and greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation measures may lead to a substantial reduction in URN for all ship types and in all regions by 2050. For example, slowing ship speeds not only reduces emissions but noise pollution. In specific cases, this reduction could be as much as 70% compared to the business-as-usual scenario.
Ocean Plastics
Beach litter originating from shipping and fishing has halved compared to a decade ago.
Harmonised beach litter data reported between 2015 and 2021 indicate that concentrations of plastic litter declined by 29% along EU coastlines. Single-use plastics have decreased by 40%, fishery-related items saw a 20% reduction and plastic bags dropped by 20%. The report said it looks possible to achieve a target of a 50% reduction in plastic litter at sea by 2030 if the current trend continues. That’s the good news. The bad news is that European plastic production is trending upward.
Future projections of macroplastic emissions and their distribution through EU marine regions show that, under a business-as-usual scenario considering full implementation of coming policies and more efficient waste management, an overall reduction of 42% could be expected by 2030. The target reduction of 50% will be only achieved in 34% of the EU marine regions’ coasts.
Recent EU legal measures on microplastics releases are expected to help move the needle toward a 30% decrease in microplastic releases by 2030 but are not sufficient to reach the goal.
Water Pollution
Most pollution in the seas originates from land-based sources. The report said the EU should focus on reducing chemical, nutrient and plastic releases at their sources. Europe’s seas are contaminated by both legacy and currently used substances. Per-and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) originating from various sources such as consumer products including clothing, cosmetics and food packaging and industrial processes are regularly found in marine organisms. Long-chain PFAS, including PFOS and PFOA pose significant risks to marine organisms and human health. PFOS concentrations in marine organisms were found at levels up to 100 times greater than the EU Environmental Quality Standard. Additionally, many other PFAS that have not been monitored may also pose unknown risks.
To address the risk posed by PFAS and PFOS in the marine environment, it will be necessary to minimise emissions of these substances from key sources such as urban wastewater treatment plants.
But sea-based activities such as shipping and aquaculture are increasingly impacting the marine environment and require targeted action. Methane emissions from maritime transport doubled between 2018 and 2023 due to liquefied natural gas (LNG)-fuelled vessels. NOx emissions increased 10% between 2015 and 2023 due to rising maritime traffic. Oil spills and operational discharges such as grey water and exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCS) which help reduce SOx air emissions but transfer the pollution to the sea. Grey water discharges increased by 40% between 2014 and 2023, largely due to the growth in cruise ship operations.
On the other hand, SOx emissions have decreased by about 70% since 2014, thanks to the introduction of sulphur emission control areas (SECAs). Additionally, the European Maritime Transportation Environmental Report (EMTER) 2025 estimates that the reduction in the size of the EU fishing fleet since 2015 led to a 17% decrease in NOx emissions and a 45% decrease in SOx emissions by 2023. Improvements of energy efficiency and the gradual adoption of alternative energy sources have also helped reduce emissions from fishing vessels.
Eutrophication
Eutrophication–the excessive growth of plants because of nutrient runoff into the water is a widespread problem across Europe’s seas. Along the continental coasts from France to Denmark/Sweden river plumes and coastal areas were affected by eutrophication, indicating that the major source remains nutrient inputs from rivers.
But, the report noted, the region has seen significant growth in aquaculture, leading to notable increases in waterborne nutrient inputs. Despite improvements in industrial discharges and wastewater treatment, these have been nearly offset by the nutrient increases from marine aquaculture.
The ocean, which covers more than 70% of the planet often gets the smallest amount of funding and regulatory oversight to protect ecosystems humans have yet to fully discover.
