Spatio-temporal variability of beached macro-litter on remote islands of the North Atlantic

Ríos, Noelia; Frias, João; Rodríguez, Yasmina; Carriço, Rita; Garcia, Sofia M.; Juliano, Manuela; Pham, Christopher K.

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.05.038

Cited by 66 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…In general, the composition of beach litter in DMNP is fairly comparable to the composition of beach litter reported for other coastal areas such as Aqaba [8] and the Turkish Sarayköy Beach [17]. In this study, plastics were the most abundant litter recorded from all study sites and this is in agreement with previous reports [11,13,18,19].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

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Status of the Beach Litter in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Dungonab and Mukkawar Island Marine National Park in Sudan, Red Sea

Ibrahim

Osman

Eisa³

2020

International Journal of Ecology

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Information on marine litter in general and beach litter in particular from Sudan and to some extent from the Red Sea region is insufficient. The aim of this study is to assess the beach litter composition, distribution, and abundance in some selected beaches of the World Heritage Site of Dungonab Bay and Mukkawar Island National Park (DMNP) located in Sudan, Red Sea coast, and to examine the rate of beach litter flux and the cleanliness of its beaches in order to provide baseline information for beach litter management at DMNP. A total of 6 sites were investigated for beach litter over a 10-month period from January to October 2017 on a quarterly basis. A total of 24 collections of beach litter were performed covering a stretch of 600 m or 7700 m2 of DMNP coastline. In total, 3037 beach litter items were collected during the study time from DMNP with an overall average of 506.2 ± 409.8 items/100 m (0.4 items/m2). Plastic beach litter was the most abundant (1738 items), constituting 57.23% with an average density of 289.7 ± 242.2 items/100 m (0.23 items/m2). The beaches of DMNP were clean (CCI = 4.6) at the time of the study. The rate of flux of the beach litter decreased steadily from 21.9 to 16.43 items/100 m/day with an overall average of 18.82 ± 2.8 items/100 m/day. The gradual decrease in the net accumulation of beach litter over the period of the study suggests that the beach litter at DMNP was likely of a local land-based origin and the beaches of DMNP are not a potential sink of marine litter. The determination of the rate of flux of beach litter is a reasonable indicator of the dynamics of beach litter in DMNP. Accordingly, application of preventive measures accompanied with awareness activities and investment in plastic collection and recycling would further enhance and preserve the present status of beach cleanliness and encourage tourism activities.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…It is highly likely that these litter items were transported by wind and/or sea currents to the site from the village of Dungonab due to absence of any human activity in the place. Transportation of litter by wind and by surface sea currents is extensively documented [19,[23][24][25].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Status of the Beach Litter in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Dungonab and Mukkawar Island Marine National Park in Sudan, Red Sea

Ibrahim

Osman

Eisa³

2020

International Journal of Ecology

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“…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: 78%

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

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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.

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“…Paraffin is discharged at sea through tank washing. This is legal under current legislation, with specific restrictions (Rijkswaterstaat, 2018) leading to an increase of paraffin mass beaching events along European coasts (Suaria et al, 2018). Lots of vessels are permanently in the ports of Klaipeda (Lithuania) and Baltiysk (Kaliningrad, Russia), wash their tanks there, and the prevailing winds transport paraffin toward the shores of TABLE 4 | Hours (h) and costs (€) for a single sand rake method survey for an expert-and a volunteer-based approach (left) and the costs of further replicates at the same beach.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marine Litter Pollution in Baltic Sea Beaches – Application of the Sand Rake Method

Haseler

Balčiūnas

Hauk

et al. 2020

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Most marine litter monitoring methods used on beaches focus on macro-litter (>25 mm) only and show shortcomings regarding smaller litter classes (<25 mm), especially at Baltic Sea beaches. Therefore, we used a sand rake method developed for large micro- (2–5 mm), and meso- (5–25 mm) litter to quantify the overall pollution status of Baltic Sea beaches and to test if the method is useful in terms of the requirements of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). Between July 2017 and October 2019, 197 sand rake method surveys were carried out at 35 regions around the Baltic Sea. In total, 9345 litter pieces were found on an area of 10,271 m2 of which 69.9% were 2–25 mm in size. Artificial polymers (4921 litter pieces) were predominant (mean 52.7% ± 13.3). Abundance of litter was 0.91 pieces/m2 ± 1.50 (median 0.40 pieces/m2). The most common litter were industrial pellets (19.8%), non-identifiable plastic pieces 2–25 mm (17.3%), cigarette butts (15.3%), and paraffin (11.9%). At 15 surveys at the German North Sea island of Sylt the litter abundance ranged from 0.45 pieces/m2 (median) to 0.59 pieces/m2 ± 0.37 (mean). Here, 69.2% of the litter was 2–25 mm in size and paraffin was predominant (69.2%). Beaches show a high pollution level with large micro- and meso-litter (2–25 mm) and our data can serve as a Baltic-wide pollution baseline. In contrast to the naked eye OSPAR method for macro-litter, the sand rake method is generally applicable on all sandy beaches, both urban and remote. This method also allows for the provision of a full spatial pollution pattern and can serve for assessing the effectiveness of marine litter mitigation measures.

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Spatio-temporal variability of beached macro-litter on remote islands of the North Atlantic

Cited by 66 publications

References 40 publications

Status of the Beach Litter in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Dungonab and Mukkawar Island Marine National Park in Sudan, Red Sea

Status of the Beach Litter in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Dungonab and Mukkawar Island Marine National Park in Sudan, Red Sea

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

Marine Litter Pollution in Baltic Sea Beaches – Application of the Sand Rake Method

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