TY - JOUR
T1 - A simple model of wind-blown tidal strandlines
T2 - How marine litter is deposited on a mid-latitude, macro-tidal shelf sea beach
AU - Turrell, W. R.
N1 - Funding Information:
A great deal of thanks to the Marine Conservation Society for allowing the use of their Beachwatch beach survey data. In addition, I thank all participants of Marine Conservation Society (MCS) beach litter surveys who generously contributed their data while removing vast quantities of anthropogenic litter from beaches across the UK and Channel Islands. More details may be found at https://www.mcsuk.org / and https://www.mcsuk.org/beachwatch/ . This study uses data from the UK Tide Gauge Network, provided by the British Oceanographic Data. The wind data was supplied by the Met Office and the British Atmospheric Data Centre. Many thanks to Helen Smith and Rory O'Hara-Murray for help with extracting and formatting the weather and tidal data. This work is wholly funded by the Scottish Government under the internal science project ST04c. Thanks to Liz, Shona, Graham, Harry and Dave for many beach walks.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author
PY - 2018/12
Y1 - 2018/12
N2 - A simple hypothesis-driven model of how floating marine plastic litter is blown onto a beach, and then moved on and off the beach by winds and rising and falling water levels is implemented in a computer simulation. The simulation applied to Aberdeen beach, Scotland, suggests that the interaction between varying winds and water levels alone, coupled to an assumed constant offshore floating litter density, can account for 1) the order of magnitude of the long term average (2000−2010) beach plastic litter loading (observed = 127 np/100 m, simulated = 114 np/100 m); 2) the observed frequency spectrum of low water beach plastic litter loadings; 3) the magnitude of the ratio between offshore floating plastic litter densities and onshore beach plastic litter loadings; 4) zero overall net beach plastic litter accumulation. Results are relevant to beach survey design, designing methods to estimate litter accumulation rates and the setting of MSFD beach litter targets.
AB - A simple hypothesis-driven model of how floating marine plastic litter is blown onto a beach, and then moved on and off the beach by winds and rising and falling water levels is implemented in a computer simulation. The simulation applied to Aberdeen beach, Scotland, suggests that the interaction between varying winds and water levels alone, coupled to an assumed constant offshore floating litter density, can account for 1) the order of magnitude of the long term average (2000−2010) beach plastic litter loading (observed = 127 np/100 m, simulated = 114 np/100 m); 2) the observed frequency spectrum of low water beach plastic litter loadings; 3) the magnitude of the ratio between offshore floating plastic litter densities and onshore beach plastic litter loadings; 4) zero overall net beach plastic litter accumulation. Results are relevant to beach survey design, designing methods to estimate litter accumulation rates and the setting of MSFD beach litter targets.
KW - Beach litter
KW - Descriptor 11
KW - Marine plastics
KW - Marine Strategy Framework Directive
KW - Strandlines
KW - Survey design
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85055051704&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.10.024
DO - 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.10.024
M3 - Article
C2 - 30503440
AN - SCOPUS:85055051704
SN - 0025-326X
VL - 137
SP - 315
EP - 330
JO - Marine Pollution Bulletin
JF - Marine Pollution Bulletin
ER -
