How to Deal With Seafloor Marine Litter: An Overview of the State-of-the-Art and Future Perspectives

Abstract

Marine litter is a significant and growing pollutant in the oceans. In recent years, the number of studies and initiatives trying to assess and tackle the global threat of marine litter has grown exponentially. Most of these studies, when considering macro-litter, focus on floating or stranded litter, whereas there is less information available about marine litter on the seabed. The aim of this article is to give an overview of the current state-of-the-art methods to address the issue of seafloor macro-litter pollution. The overview includes the following topics: the monitoring of macro-litter on the seafloor, the identification of possible litter accumulation hot spots on the seafloor through numerical models, and seafloor litter management approaches (from removal protocols to recycling processes). The article briefly analyzes the different approaches to involve stakeholders, since the marine litter topic is strongly related to the societal engagement. Finally, attempting to answer to all the critical aspects highlighted in the overview, the article highlights the need of innovative multi-level solutions to induce a change toward sustainable practices, transforming a problem into a real circular economy opportunity.

Global assessment of innovative solutions to tackle marine litter

“…Multifunction solutions-with at least two PMC functionshave recently been suggested as a future approach on marine litter 26 . In our analysis, the first of eight multifunction solutions appeared in 2015 (Supplementary Table 1).…”

“…In contrast to the common perception that most litter floats at the surface, marine litter reaches the sea bottom. Even in the most remote marine environmental areas, for example, submarine canyons, the highest litter density can occur 26 . The sea bottom, compared with other domains, has only recently been included in research into marine litter solutions.…”

“…The sea bottom, compared with other domains, has only recently been included in research into marine litter solutions. Interestingly, multifunction solutions have been suggested recently for this domain 26 .…”

An Embeddable Algorithm for Automatic Garbage Detection Based on Complex Marine Environment

“…Therefore, a correct understanding of the types of marine litter and litter cleanup can help reduce the impact of marine litter on the marine ecological environment. This carries an important practical significance for future marine ecological environment management and sustainable development [ 1 ]. Based on protecting the marine ecosystem, various methods of marine litter cleanup have been proposed and adopted by different environmental departments within government agencies, but they are not widely used.…”

Semi-Automated Data Processing and Semi-Supervised Machine Learning for the Detection and Classification of Water-Column Fish Schools and Gas Seeps with a Multibeam Echosounder

“…Indeed, the wide area insonified with a single swath (typically covering about 120°) differentiates MBESs from SBES whose main beam widens less than 20° and therefore requires far more survey time to achieve equivalent coverage. Novel and compelling applications of WCI from MBES range from qualitative descriptions of fish school behavior and morphological characteristics [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ], oil and gas leakage detection [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ], kelp ecosystem mapping [ 19 , 20 ] and aquaculture monitoring [ 21 ], to assessing the mean abundance of marine macro-litter [ 22 , 23 ] and providing other valuable insights to marine systems [ 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ].…”