[eng] Marine litter is a problematic affecting every ecosystem of the planet and trying
to solve it is certainly becoming the focus of many studies worldwide. Beach
surveys are an effective way of measuring the amount of Anthropogenic Marine
Debris (AMD) deposited on beaches and the factors influencing its abundance
and deposition patterns. Also, beach surveys suppose an effective method for
raising awareness between the local communities and a powerful educational
tool for the youngest citizen scientists.
The Mediterranean Sea, being a semi-enclosed basin with densely populated
coasts, is not evading this global problematic. In this study, a dataset of 62
beaches from the Spanish Mediterranean coast cleaned from February 2019 to
November 2019 has been analyzed, together with data from scientific surveys
performed on beaches of the Cabrera Archipelago National Maritime-Terrestrial
Park, a Marine Protected Area in the Balearic Islands, Western Mediterranean.
This study aims to understand the variables, anthropogenic and environmental
affecting the deposition of AMD in these areas, also describing in depth the
composition, sources and patterns of AMD along the Spanish Mediterranean
coastline.
The prevailing type of debris in most of the beaches surveyed was plastic, being
the light packaging the dominant fraction of the total debris found. The source of
the majority of litter was domestic and sampling dates and location were found
to have the greatest effect on the abundance of AMD, being Fall the season
with higher abundance of debris on the beaches sampled.