A multi-criteria evaluation system for marine litter pollution based on statistical analyses of OSPAR beach litter monitoring time series.
During the last decades, marine pollution with anthropogenic litter has become a worldwide major environmental concern. Standardized monitoring of litter since 2001 on 78 beaches selected within the framework of the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR) has been used to identify temporal trends of marine litter. Based on statistical analyses of this dataset a two-part multi-criteria evaluation system for beach litter pollution of the North-East Atlantic and the North Sea is proposed. Canonical correlation analyses, linear regression analyses, and non-parametric analyses of variance were used to identify different temporal trends. A classification of beaches was derived from cluster analyses and served to define different states of beach quality according to abundances of 17 input variables. The evaluation system is easily applicable and relies on the above-mentioned classification and on significant temporal trends implied by significant rank correlations.
Institute of Environmental Systems Research (USF), University of Osnabrueck, Barbarastrasse 12, 49076 Osnabrueck, Germany. Electronic address: mschulz@uos.de.
Marcus
M
Schulz
Daniel
D
Neumann
David M
DM
Fleet
Michael
M
Matthies
D001493:Bathing Beaches / Q000145:classification*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016014:Linear Models; D009659:North Sea; D012621:Seasons; D013030:Spain; D013548:Sweden; D014876:Water Pollution / Q000032:analysis*
Beach evaluation; Canonical correlation analysis; Classification system; Cluster analysis; Marine litter; Temporal trend