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Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Stranded Intertidal Marine Debris: Is There a Picture of Global Change?
journal contribution
posted on 2015-06-16, 00:00 authored by Mark Anthony Browne, M. Gee Chapman, Richard C. Thompson, Linda A. Amaral Zettler, Jenna Jambeck, Nicholas J. MallosFloating
and stranded marine debris is widespread. Increasing sea
levels and altered rainfall, solar radiation, wind speed, waves, and
oceanic currents associated with climatic change are likely to transfer
more debris from coastal cities into marine and coastal habitats.
Marine debris causes economic and ecological impacts, but understanding
the scope of these requires quantitative information on spatial patterns
and trends in the amounts and types of debris at a global scale. There
are very few large-scale programs to measure debris, but many peer-reviewed
and published scientific studies of marine debris describe local patterns.
Unfortunately, methods of defining debris, sampling, and interpreting
patterns in space or time vary considerably among studies, yet if
data could be synthesized across studies, a global picture of the
problem may be avaliable. We analyzed 104 published scientific papers
on marine debris in order to determine how to evaluate this. Although
many studies were well designed to answer specific questions, definitions
of what constitutes marine debris, the methods used to measure, and
the scale of the scope of the studies means that no general picture
can emerge from this wealth of data. These problems are detailed to
guide future studies and guidelines provided to enable the collection
of more comparable data to better manage this growing problem.