Industrial Ecology Programme, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
Industrial Ecology Programme, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
Sci Total Environ. 2024 Nov 1;949:175019. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175019. Epub 2024 Jul 24.
Inputs of persistent plastic items to marine environments continue to pose a serious and long-term threat to marine fauna and ecosystem health, justifying further interventions on local and global scales. While Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is frequently used for sustainability evaluations by industries and policymakers, plastic leakage to the environment and its subsequent impacts remains absent from the framework. Incorporating plastic pollution in the assessments requires development of both inventories and impact assessment methods. Here, we propose spatially explicit Characterization Factors (CF) for quantifying the impacts of plastic entanglement on marine megafauna (mammals, birds and reptiles) on a global scale. We utilize Lagrangian particle tracking and a Species Sensitivity Distribution (SSD) model along with species susceptibility records to estimate potential entanglement impacts stemming from lost plastic-based fishing gear. By simulating plastic losses from fishing hotspots within all Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) we provide country-specific impact estimates for use in LCA. The impacts were found to be similar across regions, although the median CF associated with Oceania was higher compared to Europe, Africa and Asia. Our findings underscore the presence of susceptible species across the world and the transboundary issue of plastic pollution. We discuss the application of the factors and identify areas of further refinement that can contribute towards a comprehensive assessment of macroplastic pollution in sustainability assessments. Degradation and beaching rates for different types of fishing gear remain a research gap, along with population-level effects on marine taxa beyond surface breathing megafauna. Increasing the coverage of impacts specific to the marine realm in LCA alongside other stressors can facilitate informed decision-making towards more sustainable marine resource management.
持续向海洋环境输入的持久性塑料物品继续对海洋动物区系和生态系统健康构成严重和长期威胁，这证明需要在地方和全球各级进一步采取干预措施。虽然生命周期评估 (LCA) 经常被行业和政策制定者用于可持续性评估，但塑料泄漏到环境及其后续影响仍然不在框架内。在评估中纳入塑料污染需要开发清单和影响评估方法。在这里，我们提出了量化塑料缠绕对海洋大型动物（哺乳动物、鸟类和爬行动物）全球影响的空间显式特征化因子 (CF)。我们利用拉格朗日粒子跟踪和物种敏感性分布 (SSD) 模型以及物种易感性记录来估计因丢失基于塑料的渔具而导致的潜在缠绕影响。通过模拟所有专属经济区 (EEZ) 内捕鱼热点的塑料损失，我们为 LCA 提供了特定国家的影响估计。尽管与欧洲、非洲和亚洲相比，与大洋洲相关的中位 CF 较高，但结果表明各地区的影响相似。我们的研究结果强调了世界范围内存在易受影响的物种和塑料污染的跨界问题。我们讨论了这些因素的应用，并确定了可以进一步改进的领域，这些领域可以有助于对可持续性评估中的宏观塑料污染进行全面评估。不同类型渔具的降解和搁浅率仍然是一个研究空白，以及除了表面呼吸大型动物以外的海洋分类单元对海洋种群的影响。在 LCA 中与其他胁迫因素一起增加对海洋领域影响的覆盖范围，可以促进朝着更可持续的海洋资源管理做出明智的决策。
