Seabed litter distribution in the high seas of the Flemish Pass area (NW Atlantic)

Ana García-Alegre,Gonzalo González-Nuevo,Pablo Durán Muñoz,Jesús Gago,Mar Sacau,Esther Román-Marcote

doi:10.3989/scimar.04945.27a

Abstract

Seabed litter of the Flemish Pass area (NW Atlantic Ocean) was analysed and described using data from the EU-Spain groundfish survey (2006-2017 period). This study presents baseline information on seabed litter in this area. The Flemish Pass is located in areas beyond national jurisdiction within the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization Regulatory Area Division 3L. A total of 1169 valid bottom trawl hauls were analysed (104-1478 m depth). Litter was found in 8.3% of the hauls, with mean densities of 1.4±0.2 items km–2 and 10.6±5.2 kg km–2. An increasing pattern with depth was found, the highest densities of seabed litter being identified in the deepest areas located in the Flemish Pass channel and down the northeastern flank of the Grand Bank. Fishing was found to be the main source of marine litter, and 61.9% of the hauls with litter presence showed litter included in the fisheries-related litter category. Whereas in most cases the litter was composed of small fragments of rope, in other cases it was composed of entire fishing gears such as traps. Plastics, metal and other anthropogenic litter were the next most abundant categories, accounting for 18.6%, 16.5% and 12.4% of the total, respectively.

Highlights

Marine litter has been recognized as a worldwide problem (UNEP 2016) affecting the marine environment in several ways, including economic loss, degradation of habitats and impact on biota
This study was conducted in the NW Atlantic Ocean within the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) Div 3L Regulatory Area, in ABJN (Fig. 1)
Marine litter was found in 8.3% of the total trawls, with mean densities of 1.4±0.2 items km–2 and 10.6±5.2 kg km–2

Summary

Introduction

Marine litter has been recognized as a worldwide problem (UNEP 2016) affecting the marine environment in several ways, including economic loss, degradation of habitats and impact on biota. Marine litter is distributed in all the compartments of the marine environment: coasts, waters and the seabed (Bergmann et al 2015). Neves et al 2015, Lopez-Lopez et al 2017, García-Rivera et al 2018), and studies on deep bottoms and locations remote from land are relatively few (see e.g. Pham et al 2014, Vieira et al 2015). In this pioneering study, we analyse an extensive database containing 12 years of data on seabed litter in the NW Atlantic Ocean (2006-2017) in an area beyond national jurisdiction.

Objectives

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion