Anthropogenic and environmental factors partly co-determine the level, composition and temporal variation of beach debris
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http://hdl.handle.net/10045/140871
Title: | Anthropogenic and environmental factors partly co-determine the level, composition and temporal variation of beach debris |
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Authors: | Soliveres, Santiago | Casado-Coy, Nuria | Martinez-Perez, Jose Emilio | Sanz-Lázaro, Carlos |
Research Group/s: | Gestión de Ecosistemas y de la Biodiversidad (GEB) | Ecología Experimental de Zonas Áridas (DRYEX) | Ecología Espacial y del Paisaje (EEP) | Bioquímica Aplicada/Applied Biochemistry (AppBiochem) |
Center, Department or Service: | Universidad de Alicante. Departamento de Ecología | Universidad de Alicante. Instituto Multidisciplinar para el Estudio del Medio "Ramón Margalef" |
Keywords: | Citizen science | Marine litter | Marine pollution | Protected areas | Plastic pollution |
Issue Date: | 20-Feb-2024 |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Citation: | Journal of Hazardous Materials. 2024, 468: 133843. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.133843 |
Abstract: | The accumulation of human-derived waste on our coasts is an escalating phenomenon, yet the relative importance and potential interactions among its main drivers are not fully understood. We used citizen-science standardized collections to investigate how anthropogenic and environmental factors influence the level, composition, and temporal variation of beach debris. An average of 58 kg and 803 items/100 m, dominated by single-use items of land (rather than sea) origin, were collected in the 881 beaches sampled. Interactions between anthropogenic and environmental factors (e.g., human use × beach substrate) were the strongest predictors of beach debris, accounting for 34% of the variance explained in its amount and composition. Beach debris showed a highly stochastic temporal variation (adjusted R2 = 0.05), partly determined by interactions between different local and landscape anthropogenic pressures. Our results show that both environmental and anthropogenic factors (at the local and landscape scale) co-determine the level and composition of beach debris. We emphasize the potential of citizen-science to inform environmental policy, showing that land-originated single-use items dominate beach debris, and the importance of considering their multiple anthropogenic and environmental drivers to improve our low predictive power regarding their spatio-temporal distribution. |
Sponsor: | This study was supported by the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge from Spain [FBIOMARINA19-01]. SS and CSL acknowledge funding from the Spanish Research Agency (URBANCHANGE, TED2021-130908B-C44). |
URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/10045/140871 |
ISSN: | 0304-3894 (Print) | 1873-3336 (Online) |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.133843 |
Language: | eng |
Type: | info:eu-repo/semantics/article |
Rights: | © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). |
Peer Review: | si |
Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.133843 |
Appears in Collections: | INV - DRYEX - Artículos de Revistas INV - GEB - Artículos de Revistas INV - EEP - Artículos de Revistas INV - AppBiochem - Artículos de Revistas |
Files in This Item:
File | Description | Size | Format | |
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Soliveres_etal_2024_JHazardMater.pdf | 4,6 MB | Adobe PDF | Open Preview | |
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