Plastic Accumulation in the Mediterranean Sea

By A. Cózar, M. Sanz-Martin, Elisa Martí, J. I. González-Gordillo, Bárbara Úbeda, José Á. Gálvez, Xabier Irigoien, C. Duarte. PLoS ONE, 2015

689 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Concentrations of floating plastic were measured throughout the Mediterranean Sea to assess whether this basin can be regarded as a great accumulation region of plastic debris. We found that the average density of plastic (1 item per 4 m2), as well as its frequency of occurrence (100% of the sites sampled), are comparable to the accumulation zones described for the five subtropical ocean gyres. Plastic debris in the Mediterranean surface waters was dominated by millimeter-sized fragments, but showed a higher proportion of large plastic objects than that present in oceanic gyres, reflecting the closer connection with pollution sources. The accumulation of floating plastic in the Mediterranean Sea (between 1,000 and 3,000 tons) is likely related to the high human pressure together with the hydrodynamics of this semi-enclosed basin, with outflow mainly occurring through a deep water layer. Given the biological richness and concentration of economic activities in the Mediterranean Sea, the affects of plastic pollution on marine and human life are expected to be particularly frequent in this plastic accumulation region.

Subfields: Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1245a9e4935eba84cdbb505e87e76ea1279cb536

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

1. P. Lindeque
2. Joanna J. Waniek
3. N. Kowalski
4. D. Kaiser
5. T. Galloway
6. S. Nelms
7. Bj Godley
8. A. Lusher

In Pollution

1. P. Lindeque
2. Joanna J. Waniek
3. N. Kowalski
4. D. Kaiser
5. T. Galloway
6. S. Nelms
7. Bj Godley
8. A. Lusher

Citations in the corpus

• Plastic and marine turtles: a review and call for research (2016, background): “Enclosed seas, such as the Mediterranean basin, also experience particularly high levels of plastic pollution due to densely populated coastal regions and low diffusion from limited water circulation (Cózar et al., 2015).”
• Effects of biofouling on the sinking behavior of microplastics (2017, background): “The gap is especially large for sub-surface transport, with recent studies focusing on surface drift of floating plastic (Cózar et al 2017, 2015, Lebreton et al 2012, van Sebille et al 2015, 2012).”
• A Review of Plastic-Associated Pressures: Cetaceans of the Mediterranean Sea and Eastern Australian Shearwaters as Case Studies (2018, background): “Particularly high levels of microplastics have been documented in the Ligurian Sea, the summer feeding ground of the Mediterranean fin whale, in the same order of magnitude as the North Pacific Gyre (Cózar et al., 2015).”
• The Commitment of Packaging Industry in the Framework of the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy (2019, background): “However, the Mediterranean Sea can be considered as an additional great accumulation zone of floating plastic debris at global scale (Cózar et al. 2015).”