Assessment of beach litter pollution in Adana Akyatan Lagoon Coast of the East Mediterranean

Abstract

This study is the first study to determine beach litter pollution in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Turkey. The pollution of beach litter were seasonally evaluated in a selected beach in the East Mediterranean Sea between August 2019 and April 2020. Beach litter survey was carried out seasonally according to ‘Guidance on Monitoring of Marine Litter in European Seas’ published by European Marine Strategy Framework Directive Technical Subgroup on Marine Litter. During the study, a total of 10.717 items and 229.29 kg were collected. The average litter abundance was 2.679 ± 0.418 items/m2 and 57.326 ± 7.165 g/m2. The results indicated that the most common type of litter were plastic and cloth/textile (84%) followed by paper/cardboard (56%), the unidentifiable (51%). Litter density showed significant seasonal differences with the highest in summer (P < 0.05). Akyatan beach was classified as extremely dirty according to Clean Coast Index. It was observed that the litter in the region averagely consisted mostly of mixed packaging litter (23.75%), domestic litter (20%) and unclassified litter (16.2%) items. Our results show that the coast of Akyatan Lagoon exposed to a significant amount of marine litter pollution originated from land-based sources. This study provides further evidence that there is a significant litter pollution in the East Mediterranean Sea and that the main component are plastics, which pose a great treat to Mediterranean Sea environment.