The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Perth, WA 6009, Australia.
The University of Western Australia, Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management, PO Box 5771, Albany, WA 6332, Australia; Ocean Institute, Western Australia, Australia.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2022 Nov;184:114126. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2022.114126. Epub 2022 Sep 24.
Understanding the accumulation mechanism for beached plastics is important for marine debris research. Similar to the global accumulation pattern for beached plastics, we find that along the remote south coast of Western Australia (SCWA) white, hard, microplastics dominate the microplastic pollution accumulating on beaches. We estimate that along the SCWA, plastics are present at a density of 2.01 items·m, but also find that the density of plastic pollution is higher at the eastern end of bays. Significantly fewer plastics were found after easterly winds (austral summer-prevailing winds), and regional physical ocean process, including the Leeuwin Current, and the Ekman transport effect may be relevant to the rate of plastic accumulation on SCWA beaches.
了解海滩塑料积累的机制对于海洋垃圾研究很重要。与全球海滩塑料的积累模式相似，我们发现，在西澳大利亚州南部偏远海岸（SCWA），白色、坚硬的微塑料是在海滩上积累的微塑料污染的主要类型。我们估计，在 SCWA 沿线，塑料的密度为 2.01 个·米，但也发现海湾东端的塑料污染密度更高。在东风（澳大利亚夏季盛行风）过后，塑料的数量明显减少，区域物理海洋过程，包括利文洋流和埃克曼输运效应，可能与 SCWA 海滩上塑料的积累速度有关。
