Baseline for beached marine debris on Sand Island, Midway Atoll

Abstract

a b s t r a c tBaseline measurements were made of the amount and weight of beached marine debris on Sand Island, Midway Atoll, June 2008-July 2010. On 23 surveys, 32,696 total debris objects (identifiable items and pieces) were collected; total weight was 740.4 kg. Seventy-two percent of the total was pieces; 91% of the pieces were made of plastic materials. Pieces were composed primarily of polyethylene and polypropylene. Identifiable items were 28% of the total; 88% of the identifiable items were in the fishing/aquaculture/shipping-related and beverage/household products-related categories. Identifiable items were lowest during April-August, while pieces were at their lowest during June-August. Sites facing the North Pacific Gyre received the most debris and proportionately more pieces. More debris tended to be found on Sand Island when the Subtropical Convergence Zone was closer to the Atoll. This information can be used for potential mitigation and to understand the impacts of large-scale events such as the 2011 Japanese tsunami.Published by Elsevier Ltd.Marine debris is one of the important management problems facing the islands in the Papahā naumokuā kea Marine National Monument (Monument) (Selkoe et al., 2008). The coastal areas of these islands are dynamic environments in which debris is deposited on the beaches and re-circulated into the near-shore area via wave action, tides, and storms. Because of the minimal human population in the Monument and rigorous on-island waste management, marine debris comes entirely from sources external to the Monument. Marine debris research in the Monument has focused on the impact of fishing nets on coral systems and the endangered Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus schauinslandi) (Boland and Donohue, 2003;Dameron et al., 2007). This has resulted in marine debris management being focused on removal of fishing nets and other gear. Little is known about other beached marine debris in the Monument (McDermid and McMullen, 2004;Morishige et al., 2007), other than that debris deposited on Monument beaches arrives from non-Monument sources. The objective of this study was to collect baseline information on the full spectrum of marine debris deposited on Monument beaches.The study was done on Sand Island, Midway Atoll; Sand Island is part of the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. The island has an average population of 92 people and has the infrastructure to support a monitoring program. Four monitoring sites were used; the sites were 150-m lengths of beach with randomly chosen starting points. Two sites were on North Sand Island (facing the North Pacific Gyre), one site was on the west side (oblique to the Gyre), and one was on the south side (where the fringing reef is closest to shore) (Fig. 1). Site boundaries were established using GPS and marked at ground level so as not to pose a hazard to flying birds or other wildlife using these beach areas. The markers were made from existing debris found on the island -derelict fishing buoys anchored into the sand by construction reba...

The flip-or-flop boutique: Marine debris on the shores of St Brandon's rock, an isolated tropical atoll in the Indian Ocean

“…The debris density on SBR's shores corresponds with a number of other studies that investigated remote islands (Benton, 1995;Morishige et al, 2007;Ribic et al, 2012a;Ribic et al, 2012b; see also Table 2). One regionally comparable study (Willoughby et al, 1997) conducted in the Java Sea correlated item density with distance from Jakarta, Indonesia.…”

Marine Anthropogenic Litter

“…The lack of large-scale trends in the OSPAR-regions is probably due to small-scale heterogeneity of near-shore currents, which evoke small-scale heterogeneity in deposition patterns on beaches (Schulz et al 2013). Ribic et al ( , 2012b derived several nonlinear models to describe the development of pollution of coastal areas with marine litter. There were long-term changes in indicator debris on the Pacific Coast of the U.S. and Hawaii over the nine-year period of the study.…”

“…For example, 41 % of the total debris from beaches in California was of Styrofoam origin, with no other explanation than an increased use of packaging, which degrades very easily (Ribic et al 2012b). Small-sized items may form an important fraction of debris on beaches.…”

Distribution of Marine Debris Stranded on a City Beach: A Case Study of Las Canteras Beach, Gran Canaria

“…An attempt for identifying the main use or activity related with the collected materials before entering the waterways, known as activities related debris [2], [3], [17], [23], [24], has been has been done when possible. This identification can only be applied on limited items and could lead to a possible disposal source.…”