article · Environmental Monitoring and Assessment
Surveys across Mediterranean beaches in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia evaluated macro-litter and meso-litter across urban, semi-urban, tourist, and semi-rural locations. Contamination proved highest on urban and tourist beaches, with the upper third of the shoreline accumulating half of all meso-litter by count and weight. Human shoreline activities and inadequate waste management accounted for over half of macro-litter and over a third of meso-litter. Because high pollution levels made standard 100-metre macro-litter surveys impractical, an adapted 10-metre transect protocol was tested, successfully capturing data on the top 25 litter items responsible for 82 percent of pollution. In addition, the Sand Rake method reliably quantified previously neglected meso-litter on both cleaned and uncleaned beaches. The findings demonstrate that routine beach cleaning alone cannot resolve coastal pollution, necessitating improved waste management, public awareness, and legal enforcement.
Coastal litter threatens marine ecosystems and tourist economies across North Africa. By showing that most beach pollution stems directly from shoreline human activity and poor waste handling rather than distant marine sources, this research highlights the limitations of beach cleaning alone. It also provides practical surveying tools that allow authorities to track litter faster and design targeted coastal waste interventions.
The work presents applied and tested survey protocols, including a rapid 10-metre transect technique and the Sand Rake method for meso-litter. These assessment tools are ready for immediate use by municipal authorities, environmental protection agencies, and coastal monitoring programmes to conduct cost-effective audits. While not a standalone commercial product, these methods enable standardised data collection that can inform public sector waste management contracts and environmental compliance frameworks.
AI-generated from the published abstract. Always read the original work before citing.
We conducted surveys of Mediterranean beaches in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia including 37 macro-litter (> 25 mm) and 41 meso-litter (5-25 mm) assessments. Our study identified key litter items and assessed pollution sources on urban, semi-urban, tourist, and semi-rural beaches. Macro-litter concentration averaged 5032 ± 4919 pieces per 100 m or 1.71 ± 2.28 pieces/m<sup>2</sup>, with higher values observed on urban (mean 2.63 pieces/m<sup>2</sup> ± 3.03) and tourist (mean 1.23 pieces/m<sup>2</sup> ± 0.91) beaches. Similarly, urban (mean 9.91 pieces/m<sup>2</sup> ± 12.70) and tourist beaches (mean 5.32 pieces/m<sup>2</sup> ± 4.48) revealed elevated levels of meso-litter contamination, particularly in the upper third of the beach, which contained the highest quantities both in terms of number (51%) and weight (50%). 55% of the macro-litter and 35% of the meso-litter originated from human shoreline activities and poor waste management. Given the width of some beaches and their high levels of pollution, the standard 100 m macro-litter approach was impractical. To enable cost-effective, long-term monitoring, we adapted it to a faster 10 m transect approach, which provided reliable data on the top 25 litter items, accounting for 82% of beach pollution. Our Sand Rake method effectively quantified pollution on both cleaned and uncleaned beaches, addressing the often neglected meso-litter size fraction. The high pollution levels, top litter items, and identified sources indicate that beach cleaning alone will not solve the pollution problem. Efforts to raise environmental awareness, enhanced waste management, and law enforcement are needed to improve the situation in a sustainable way.
This page summarises published work. The authoritative version sits with the publisher.
DOI: 10.1007/s10661-024-13517-x
Is something wrong with this record? Report it or request removal.
Discussion
Have you built on this work, tried to replicate it, or seen it applied in practice? Share what you know. Verified researchers and MARATTO™ domain experts can open a discussion, and any member can reply. Contributions are reviewed before they appear.
No discussion yet. Open the first thread.
New to MARATTO™? Create a free account.
