A Comprehensive First Baseline for Marine Litter Characterization in the Madeira Archipelago (NE Atlantic)

Álvarez, Soledad; Gestoso, Ignácio; Herrera, Alicia; Riera, Léa; Canning‐Clode, João

doi:10.1007/s11270-020-04517-x

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 55 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In the sandy beaches of northern Portugal, the total weight of marine litter was four times greater than the total weight of natural wrack, especially during winter. Coinciding with other studies, the most abundant material of the marine litter was plastic [41,42,[55][56][57]. Most of this plastic originated from fishing materials such as ropes, tangled nets, cords or strings, fishing lines or plastic stoppers for mussel farming, which could be harmful to marine organisms [58][59][60].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…The west of the Iberian Peninsula also experiences numerous recreational and maritime activities and is an important route for commercial vessels and cruise ships, thus adding increased sources of pollution to coastal ecosystems in the form of marine litter. The total amount of marine litter found on the beaches of northern Portugal was somewhat higher compared to other places of the west of the Iberian Peninsula, such as Cádiz [57], Galicia [41], Madeira [56], and Açores [42,55,70], but was much lower than that found in other highly polluted areas such as Papua (New Guinea [71]), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil, [72]) or Chile [73]. The high marine litter pollution found on the sandy beaches in this study, which are located far away from urban centres where tourists and local bathers are rare, provides some evidence for the urgent need to manage and control this problem in the North of Portugal.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Spatio-Temporal Variability of Anthropogenic and Natural Wrack Accumulations along the Driftline: Marine Litter Overcomes Wrack in the Northern Sandy Beaches of Portugal

Guerrero‐Meseguer

Veiga

Rubal

2020

JMSE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Marine litter can end up deposited on sandy beaches and become entangled in the natural wrack, threatening its roles in ecosystems. However, it is currently unknown whether the storage of both artificial and natural accumulations on sandy beaches is correlated. Here, we quantified and compared, by first time, the litter and natural wrack on five sandy beaches in the north of Portugal. Results showed that the amount of marine litter and natural wrack were not correlated. Most of the sandy beaches had more litter than wrack and both artificial and natural accumulations disclosed high spatio-temporal variability. In summer, annual and opportunistic macroalgae dominated the wrack, while the litter was mainly formed by cigarette butts and leftover food. In winter, perennial taxa were more abundant in the wrack and plastics from mussel farming and cotton bud sticks dominated the litter. The macroalga Fucus spp., plastic pieces and materials from fishing were frequent in both periods. This study confirms that, currently, more litter than natural wrack reaches the Northern Portuguese sandy beaches, evidencing the need to take urgent measures against this contamination. Future management measures should consider this spatio-temporal variability to quantify both depositions.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Spatio-Temporal Variability of Anthropogenic and Natural Wrack Accumulations along the Driftline: Marine Litter Overcomes Wrack in the Northern Sandy Beaches of Portugal

Guerrero‐Meseguer

Veiga

Rubal

2020

JMSE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For this reason, common patterns in the transport of incoming marine litter are expected to occur between the archipelagos. However, although recent studies strongly suggest that most of the debris collected on the Macaronesian islands come from the open ocean (e.g., Baztan et al, 2014;Fernandes, 2019;Álvarez et al, 2020;Pham et al, 2020), the exposure of the archipelagos to the regional transport of marine litter has, to the best of our knowledge, not been addressed to present date.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Modeling the Exposure of the Macaronesia Islands (NE Atlantic) to Marine Plastic Pollution

Cardoso

Caldeira

2021

Front. Mar. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The constant increase of marine plastic pollution poses an unprecedented risk to oceanic islands, which become increasingly exposed to a hazard of which they have very little control. Located in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, the Macaronesia is comprised by the Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands, and Cabo Verde. Although past studies suggest that most plastic items collected on these islands are from offshore regions, their actual sources remain unclear to present date. As such, we focus on the characterization of the potential sources and pathways of plastic particles reaching the Macaronesia archipelagos. This is achieved by combining modeled datasets for ocean currents, winds and waves with a Lagrangian tool used to track virtual particles released around the archipelagos for a 10-year period, making a distinction between surface and submerged particles. Global drifter trajectories are also assessed, selecting those that intercept the archipelagos. Our results demonstrate that the North Atlantic subtropical gyre is the most conspicuous feature in particles and drifter trajectories. The Gulf Stream acts as the main pathway for all archipelagos at a regional scale, though with less significance to Cabo Verde. Surface particles are connected to regional sources in a shorter timescale than mixed particles, mainly because of the wind. Intercepting high-windage particle trajectories are dominant at the center of the North Atlantic subtropical gyre, demonstrating that particles originating from the North Atlantic “garbage patch” are most likely to intercept the archipelagos if considerably exposed to the wind. Regarding the connectivity to sources, all archipelagos are significantly exposed to areas of intensive fishing activity, mainly those located in the Gulf Stream (Azores), in international waters off the Portuguese coast (Madeira and Canary Islands) and along the Northwestern African coast (Cabo Verde). The east coasts of Central and North America are the main sources of land-based particles reaching the Azores, Madeira, and Canary Islands, whereas the Northwestern African coast is the main source for land-based particles reaching Cabo Verde. Our results demonstrate how vulnerable the Macaronesian archipelagos are to marine plastic pollution, highlighting the urgency for international cooperation to mitigate the exposure of oceanic islands to marine plastic pollution.

show abstract

“…Many islands report increasing problems related to the massive arrival of microplastics at their beaches, as indicated in various studies affected by the North Atlantic gyre concerning Azores [10,11], Madeira [10,12], other Atlantic islands [13,14] and the Canary Islands, [15][16][17][18][19][20][21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bacterial Colonization of Microplastics at the Beaches of an Oceanic Island, Tenerife, Canary Islands

Hernández-Sánchez

Pestana-Ríos

Villanova-Solano

et al. 2023

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

(1) Isolated systems, such as oceanic islands, are increasingly experiencing important problems related to microplastic debris on their beaches. The formation of microbial biofilm on the surface of microplastics present in marine environments provides potential facilities for microorganisms to survive under the biofilm. Moreover, microplastics act as a vehicle for the dispersion of pathogenic organisms, constituting a new route of exposure for humans. (2) In this study, the microbial content (FIO and Vibrio spp. and Staphylococcus aureus) of microplastics (fragments and pellets) collected from seven beaches of the oceanic island of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands (Spain), was determined. (3) Results showed that Escherichia coli was present in 57.1% of the fragments and 28.5% of the pellets studied. In the case of intestinal Enterococci, 85.7% of the fragments and 57.1% of the pellets tested positive for this parameter. Finally, 100% of the fragments and 42.8% of the pellets analyzed from the different beaches contained Vibrio spp. (4) This study shows that microplastics act as reservoirs of microorganisms that can increase the presence of bacteria indicating faecal and pathogenic contamination in bathing areas.

show abstract

A Comprehensive First Baseline for Marine Litter Characterization in the Madeira Archipelago (NE Atlantic)

Cited by 14 publications

References 55 publications

Spatio-Temporal Variability of Anthropogenic and Natural Wrack Accumulations along the Driftline: Marine Litter Overcomes Wrack in the Northern Sandy Beaches of Portugal

Spatio-Temporal Variability of Anthropogenic and Natural Wrack Accumulations along the Driftline: Marine Litter Overcomes Wrack in the Northern Sandy Beaches of Portugal

Modeling the Exposure of the Macaronesia Islands (NE Atlantic) to Marine Plastic Pollution

Bacterial Colonization of Microplastics at the Beaches of an Oceanic Island, Tenerife, Canary Islands

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About