Marine Litter Distribution and Density in European Seas, from the Shelves to Deep Basins

By C. Pham, E. Ramirez-Llodra, Claudia H S Alt, T. Amaro, Melanie Bergmann, M. Canals, J. Company, Jaime S. Davies, G. Duineveld, F. Galgani and 13 more. PLoS ONE, 2014

614 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Anthropogenic litter is present in all marine habitats, from beaches to the most remote points in the oceans. On the seafloor, marine litter, particularly plastic, can accumulate in high densities with deleterious consequences for its inhabitants. Yet, because of the high cost involved with sampling the seafloor, no large-scale assessment of distribution patterns was available to date. Here, we present data on litter distribution and density collected during 588 video and trawl surveys across 32 sites in European waters. We found litter to be present in the deepest areas and at locations as remote from land as the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The highest litter density occurs in submarine canyons, whilst the lowest density can be found on continental shelves and on ocean ridges. Plastic was the most prevalent litter item found on the seafloor. Litter from fishing activities (derelict fishing lines and nets) was particularly common on seamounts, banks, mounds and ocean ridges. Our results highlight the extent of the problem and the need for action to prevent increasing accumulation of litter in marine environments.

Subfields: Ecology, Ocean Engineering, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/09fd79d2b46720f270607217b6537752a12d430a

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Citations in the corpus

The Mediterranean Plastic Soup: synthetic polymers in Mediterranean surface waters (2016, neutral): “Large amounts of plastic debris have been reported from the Mediterranean seafloor 25 and floating on its surface 26 , as well as on beaches 27,28 and coastal environments 29,30 .”
Marine litter, future prospects for research (2015, background): “Results are expressed in items/ha. plastic debris items per square km (Pham et al., 2014).”
The Whittard Canyon: a case study of submarine canyon processes (2016, neutral): “They provide the main transport pathways between the shelf and the deep ocean, funnelling sediments, nutrients and organic matter (OM) (Puig et al., 2014) as well as pollutants and litter (e.g. Palanques et al., 2008; Pham et al., 2014) into the deep sea.”
Microplastics Generation: Onset of Fragmentation of Polyethylene Films in Marine Environment Mesocosms (2017, methodology): “Other measurement methods, such as rheology and size exclusion chromatography have been proposed as alternatives to molecular weight measurements (Restrepo-Flórez et al., 2014).”
Plastic debris in the open ocean (2014, background): “However, these large objects, included those in the uppermost part of our plastic size spectrum, are commonly observed on the seafloor (37) and likely contribute significantly to reduce the global load at the surface.”
Microplastics in freshwater and terrestrial environments: Evaluating the current understanding to identify the knowledge gaps and future research priorities. (2017, background): “Plastics have been observed even 154 in remote areas of the world including deep-sea sediments (Van Cauwenberghe et al., 2013; Woodall 155 et al., 2014), submarine canyons (Pham et al., 2014) and encapsulated in Arctic sea ice (Obbard et al., 156 2014), far from any potential land-based source.”
Plastic Accumulation in the Mediterranean Sea (2015, background): “Several studies have reported an abundance of large buoyant plastic objects on the Mediterranean seafloor [29, 30].”
Deleterious Effects of Litter on Marine Life (2015, background): “On the other hand, derelict fishing gear, bags and large (agricultural) foils are known to cover parts of the seafloor at all depths (e.g. Galgani et al. 1996; Watters et al. 2010; Van Cauwenberghe et al. 2013; Pham et al. 2014) (Fig.”
The quest for seafloor macrolitter: a critical review of background knowledge, current methods and future prospects (2020, background): “…habitats for a long time after reaching the bottom (Dono-hue et al 2001, Yoshikawa and Asoh 2004, Chiap-pone et al 2005, Bauer et al 2008, Heifetz et al 2009, Orejas et al 2009, Madurell et al 2012, Pham et al 2013, 2014, Bo et al 2014, Fabri et al 2014, Angiolillo et al 2015, Consoli et al 2018).”