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Repeated Pass Removal Survey for Estimating Land-Based Trash Abundance v1
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Researchers developed and tested a repeated-pass removal survey method for estimating land-based litter abundance in terrestrial systems, which remain understudied relative to aquatic and marine litter despite being the primary source of plastic reaching waterways. The method provides reproducible abundance estimates that enable cross-site comparisons and tracking of litter management effectiveness.
Land-based litter negatively impacts human and ecosystem health, tourism and recreation, and the economy.1 Most terrestrial, aquatic, and marine litter consists of plastic items, and a majority of aquatic and marine litter comes from terrestrial sources.2, 3, 4 Yet, plastic litter in terrestrial systems remains understudied relative to litter in aquatic and marine environments.3, 5 Surveying is a common method for determining litter abundance in terrestrial systems. Single-pass litter surveys, in which a surveyor passes through a transect once by foot, bicycle, or car, serve as the established method for assessing the qualitative or quantitative abundance of land-based litter. Established single-pass survey methods include but are not limited to the Bay Area Stormwater Management Association On-Land Visual Trash Assessment, various Surfrider and Channel Keeper “Beach Clean Up” methods, the Southern California Coastal Water Research Program Southern California Bight Regional Monitoring Program Trash Surveys, the Keep America Beautiful National Visible Litter Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project, the Ocean Conservancy International Coastal Cleanup, 5 Gyres Plastic Beach and Plastic Ocean methods, the University of Washington Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team Marine Debris Survey, the State of California Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program Rapid Trash Assessment, the Alliance for the Great Lakes Adopt-A-Beach Litter Monitoring method, and some United States Environmental Protection Agency Trash Free Waters Projects.6 Single-pass litter survey methods are useful given the time and cost constraints often associated with boots-on-the-ground surveying. However, there is a tradeoff: single-pass surveys underestimate litter abundance relative to multiple-pass surveys, and single-pass surveys lack measures of the variance in litter abundance. This is primarily because single-pass surveys involve variable levels of surveying effort, and do not always result in quantitative measures. Underestimation of litter abundance and knowledge gaps regarding the variation in litter abundance will result in inaccurate results when it comes to monitoring and predicting litter source, transport, and fate. Additionally, due to unmeasured variation in litter abundance, data acquired through single-pass trash assessment methods or clean-up events are difficult to compare without measures of effort. To address these issues, the Repeated Pass Removal Survey for Estimating Land-Based Trash Abundance aims to better estimate the number of visible and removable plastic litter items in the environment, with a quantification of the uncertainty around that estimate suitable for comparison between sites.
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