Abstract
Composition and abundance of submerged marine litter at one selected site within a coral reef area along the Jordanian coast of the Gulf of Aqaba has been estimated. The litter was collected in a clean up voluntarily campaigns that took place in the period 19 September 2006. A total of 14613 items weighing 4112.2 kg were collected during the survey. Mean litter density in the individual sampling sites varied between about 1 and 6 items/m2 with an over all mean density of 2 items/m2. The mean weight of the collected items per sampling site varied between 0.06 and 1.81 kg/m2 with an overall mean of 0.85 kg/m2. Cans accounted for 41% of the collected items, plastic was the second most popular (38%) while glass litter was the third most abundant item (17%). By comparison, other items formed only 4% of the total items collected during the campaigns. Approximately 46% of the plastic litter consisted of fragments followed by bottles bags and containers (18%). Potential sources are pointed out and recommendations and actions to deal with the problem are suggested.
Highlights
Plastic accounted for 38% of the items counted, while total glass was the third most important item and constituted 17%
Within the plastics when the weight is considered, about 36% consisted of bottles and 36% of Fragments, whereas, containers bags accounted for 28% and 2% respectively (Figure 5)
A significant amount of literature is dedicated to beach litter types, distributions, and temporal variations [7], but almost no exist with respect to submerged marine litter by the 1990s [31]
Summary
Abundance, distribution and quantification of the types and amounts on beaches have been studied and reported from many parts of the world [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. Benthic marine debris may have detrimental effect on coral reef ecosystem by damaging of corals covered by debris [29]. Movement of fishing gear can cause damage to coral substrate comprising the reef structure; some nets recovered had 20% of their weight attributable to broken coral fragments. Movement of fishing gear across shallow reefs destroys other benthic reef flora and fauna and entangles macrofauna, including threatened and endangered species [30]
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