Marine anthropogenic litter on British beaches: A 10-year nationwide assessment using citizen science data
Marine anthropogenic litter on British beaches: A 10-year nationwide assessment using citizen science data
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DOI：
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.11.137
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发表时间：
2017-02-01
影响因子：
9.8
通讯作者：
Witt, M. J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Nelms, S. E.;Coombes, C.;Witt, M. J.
越来越多的证据表明，人为垃圾，特别是塑料垃圾，对全球海洋生态系统构成了高度普遍和持续的威胁。多国研究正在取得进展，以确定其来源、分布和数量，以便能够制定旨在减少未来投入和清除现有垃圾的干预措施。由公众成员收集信息的公民科学项目提供了一种低成本的方法，可以收集具有相当大的时间和空间覆盖范围的大量数据。此外，这些项目提高了对环境问题的认识，并可导致行为和态度的积极变化。我们展示了十多年来（2005-2014年）由海洋保护协会（MCS）志愿者在英国海岸线进行的海滩垃圾调查中收集的数据，目的是增加对海岸垃圾组成、空间分布和时间趋势的了解。与许多公民科学计划不同，海事处的沙滩垃圾调查计划收集有关义工人数、调查时间和调查距离的资料。这种全面的信息提供了一个机会，使调查中抽样工作的差异数据标准化，提高产出的价值和调查结果的稳健性。我们发现塑料是英国海滩上人为垃圾的主要成分，大多数可追溯的物品都来自陆地，比如公共垃圾。我们确定西英吉利海峡和凯尔特海的海岸经历了最高的相对垃圾水平。在10年的时间里，对一些单独的项目类别发现了增加的趋势，但在总（努力校正）垃圾中没有发现统计学上显著的变化。我们讨论了数据集的局限性，并对未来的工作提出了建议。这项研究证明了公民科学数据在提供见解方面的价值，否则，由于在如此大规模的范围内运行政府资助的抽样项目的后勤和财政限制，这些见解是不可能实现的。爱思唯尔2016年版权所有
Growing evidence suggests that anthropogenic litter, particularly plastic, represents a highly pervasive and persistent threat to global marine ecosystems. Multinational research is progressing to characterise its sources, distribution and abundance so that interventions aimed at reducing future inputs and clearing extant litter can be developed. Citizen science projects, whereby members of the public gather information, offer a low-costmethod of collecting large volumes of data with considerable temporal and spatial coverage. Furthermore, such projects raise awareness of environmental issues and can lead to positive changes in behaviours and attitudes. We present data collected over a decade (2005-2014 inclusive) by Marine Conservation Society (MCS) volunteers during beach litter surveys carried along the British coastline, with the aim of increasing knowledge on the composition, spatial distribution and temporal trends of coastal debris. Unlike many citizen science projects, the MCS beach litter survey programme gathers information on the number of volunteers, duration of surveys and distances covered. This comprehensive information provides an opportunity to standardise data for variation in sampling effort among surveys, enhancing the value of outputs and robustness of findings. We found that plastic is the main constituent of anthropogenic litter on British beaches and the majority of traceable items originate from land-based sources, such as public littering. We identify the coast of the Western English Channel and Celtic Sea as experiencing the highest relative litter levels. Increasing trends over the 10-year time period were detected for a number of individual item categories, yet no statistically significant change in total (effort-corrected) litter was detected. We discuss the limitations of the dataset and make recommendations for future work. The study demonstrates the value of citizen science data in providing insights that would otherwise not be possible due to logistical and financial constraints of running government-funded sampling programmes on such large scales. Crown Copyright (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.