Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 17, 2025
Sampling, Sorting, and Characterizing Microplastics in Aquatic Environments with High Suspended Sediment Loads and Large Floating Debris
Published on: July 28, 2018
Continental patterns in marine debris revealed by a decade of citizen science
Jordan Gacutan1, Emma L Johnston2, Heidi Tait3
1Centre for Marine Science and Innovation, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia; Global Ocean Accounts Partnership, Faculty of Law, UNSW, Sydney, Australia.
Abstract:
Anthropogenic marine debris is a persistent threat to oceans, imposing risks to ecosystems and the communities they support. Whilst an understanding of marine debris risks is steadily advancing, monitoring at spatial and temporal scales relevant to management remains limited. Citizen science projects address this shortcoming but are often critiqued on data accuracy and potential bias in sampling efforts. Here we present 10-years of Australia's largest marine debris database - the Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI), in which we perform systematic data filtering, test for differences between collecting groups, and report patterns in marine debris. We defined five stages of data filtering to address issues in data quality and to limit inference to ocean-facing sandy beaches. Significant differences were observed in the average accumulation of items between filtered and remaining data. Further, differences in sampling were compared between collecting groups at the same site (e.g., government, NGOs, and schools), where no significant differences were observed. The filtering process removed 21% of events due to data quality issues and a further 42% of events to restrict analyses to ocean-facing sandy beaches. The remaining 7275 events across 852 sites allowed for an assessment of debris patterns at an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. Hard plastics were the most common material found on beaches both nationally and regionally, consisting of up to 75% of total debris. Nationally, land and sea-sourced items accounted for 48% and 7% of debris, respectively, with most debris found on the east coast of Australia. This study demonstrates the value of citizen science datasets with broad spatial and temporal coverage, and the importance of data filtering to improve data quality. The citizen science presented provides an understanding of debris patterns on Australia's ocean beaches and can serve as a foundation for future source reduction plans.
