New global standards on sulphur content in marine fuels have led to an increasing number of ships installing exhaust gas cleaning systems, also known as scrubbers, to reduce air emissions of sulphur oxides. Ships equipped with a scrubber can continue to use heavy fuel oil, resulting in significant discharge of acidified water containing several contaminants, such as heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants (POPs; mainly polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), and nitrogen compounds.The simplest and most common type of scrubber system, the open-loop scrubber, directly discharges the contaminated water in to the sea. The use of scrubber systems by ships is an emerging global problem and an additional pressure on the marine environment. The substances found in scrubber discharge water can cause acute effects on marine biota and may have further impacts, through bioaccumulation, acidification, and eutrophication, on the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems.The number of ships with installed scrubber systems is increasing, but legislation on scrubber discharge is lagging, inconsistent between countries, and often insufficient to protect the environment. ICES recommends the use of cleaner low-sulphur fuels, such as marine gas oil, to eliminate scrubber use and associated impacts on the marine environment.Until this is possible, ICES proposes a set of measures to mitigate scrubber impacts
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The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES; French: Conseil International pour l'Exploration de la Mer, CIEM) is an intergovernmental marine science organization that brings together the efforts and knowledge of 20 Member States, bordering the North Atlantic and the Arctic Circumpolar Zone, on physical oceanography, marine ecosystems and fisheries management. Nowadays, more than 80 Belgian scientists are directly involved in the work of the 150 bodies and expert groups of ICES, which gather the expertise of more than 1500 scientists yearly, totalling up to 5000 scientists from over 700 marine institutes and organizations over the years. This important and often voluntary dedication of Belgian scientists to the work of ICES deserves more visibility among the Belgian scientific community itself and to policy makers.This is, among others, why the BICEpS initiative was launched in 2018. BICEpS general aim is to offer a platform to the Belgian ICES community to get to know each other, to improve collaboration and share information, and to promote ICES to the wider scientific community in Belgium. BICEpS Annual report 2019 presents the second year of activity of this initiative created to reinforce Belgian ICES people. The report targets marine scientists, marine managers and policy makers. It presents the results of the initiative so far. The report contains the list of Belgian ICES members in 2019 with their membership to the different ICES working groups, and the results of the second BICEpS Colloquium organised on 2 December 2019 and hosted by ILVO in Ghent (Summary of the sessions, abstracts of communications presented and list of participants). The abstracts of the colloquium are supplemented by a separate annex published online which assembles the PowerPoint presentations of the colloquium accessible at http://ices.dk/community/groups/Documents/BICEPS/BICEpS19-PPT-presentations.pdf This report is accessible on the ICES website at http://ices.dk/community/groups/Pages/BICEpS.aspx
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