Marine litter on Mediterranean shores: Analysis of composition, spatial distribution and sources in north-western Adriatic beaches

Abstract

Marine litter is one descriptor in the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). This study provides the first account of an MSFD indicator (Trends in the amount of litter deposited on coastlines) for the north-western Adriatic. Five beaches were sampled in 2015. Plastic dominated in terms of abundance, followed by paper and other groups. The average density was 0.2 litter items m(-2), but at one beach it raised to 0.57 items m(-2). The major categories were cigarette butts, unrecognizable plastic pieces, bottle caps, and others. The majority of marine litter came from land-based sources: shoreline and recreational activities, smoke-related activities and dumping. Sea-based sources contributed for less. The abundance and distribution of litter seemed to be particularly influenced by beach users, reflecting inadequate disposal practices. The solution to these problems involves implementation and enforcement of local educational and management policies.

Combining Litter Observations with a Regional Ocean Model to Identify Sources and Sinks of Floating Debris in a Semi-enclosed Basin: The Adriatic Sea

“…Plastic litter has been reported from northern Adriatic beaches (Laglbauer et al, 2014;Munari et al, 2016), coastal sediments (Vianello et al, 2013;Blašković et al, 2017), surface waters (Suaria and Aliani, 2014;Gajšt et al, 2016;Suaria et al, 2016) and in very large amounts on the seafloor (Galgani et al, 2000;Strafella et al, 2015;Pasquini et al, 2016), where litter densities are among the highest of the entire Mediterranean basin. Ingestion of plastic by Adriatic fauna has been reported for marine turtles (Lazar and Gračan, 2011;Poppi et al, 2012), sperm whales (Mazzariol et al, 2011) and dolphins (Pribanic et al, 1999) as well as from commercial fish (Avio et al, 2015) and crustacean species (Wieczorek et al, 1999).…”

“…Furthermore, even relatively highresolution regional models, like the one employed here, cannot resolve complex shoreline topography. Additionally, a resource manager coordinating cleanup efforts is not faced with the mean state, which is most commonly reported by modeling studies, but instead must respond to debris loads that can vary in space and time (Kako et al, 2010(Kako et al, , 2011 in response to numerous environmental (Critchell and Lambrechts, 2016) and human factors (Slavin et al, 2012;Munari et al, 2016).…”

Marine litter from beach-based sources: Case study of an Eastern Mediterranean coastal town

“…This is especially well-known in the Mediterranean Sea which is a semienclosed sea with a very slow flush rate; large populations live along its coasts and environmental awareness among many of these inhabitants is not particularly high (Laubier, 2005). Efforts to address the acute problems of beach litter by the 22 countries on the Mediterranean seashores are beginning to take shape, albeit slowly (Alkalay et al, 2007;Laglbauer et al, 2014;Poeta et al, 2014;Munari et al, 2016;Poeta et al, 2016;Pasternak et al, 2017).…”

“…While several studies have conducted surveys and identified a variety of activities generating marine litter (e.g., Slavin et al, 2012;, Alkalay et al, 2007;Poeta et al, 2014;Munari et al, 2016) the novelty of this paper is its surveying of litter found on a coastal area within a single town over time and space. Although all three of the spaces surveyed are beaches, different activities take place in each.…”

“…But by and large it is clear that a significant amount of marine litter comes from land-based sources (Thiel et al, 2013). Therefore, a number of marine litter studies have pointed out the need for up-to-date, detailed and contextual research that focuses on landside inputs, such as the recreational activities taking place on beaches (Alkalay et al, 2007;Slavin et al, 2012;Laglbauer et al, 2014;Munari et al, 2016).…”