Marine Pollution Bulletin 194 (2023) 115396 3 Fig. 1. Top: Overview of the North Sea. Bottom: Sampling areas in and around OWFs in the German Bight (grey areas) within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The investigated areas are labeled according to the site development plan for the German North Sea and Baltic Sea (BSH, 2023). Tributaries of the German Bight (Weser, Ems and Elbe) are highlighted in blue. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.) A. Ebeling et al.