Data_Sheet_2_Tracking Marine Litter With a Global Ocean Model: Where Does It Go? Where Does It Come From?.pdf

Plastic is the most abundant type of marine litter and it is found in all of the world’s oceans and seas, even in remote areas far from human activities. It is a major concern because plastics remain in the oceans for a long time. To address questions that are of great interest to the international community as it seeks to attend to the major sources of marine plastics in the ocean, we use particle tracking simulations to simulate the motions of mismanaged plastic waste and provide a quantitative global estimate of (1) where does the marine litter released into the ocean by a given country go and (2) where does the marine litter found on the coastline of a given country come from. The overall distribution of the modeled marine litter is in good agreement with the limited observations that we have at our disposal and our results illustrate how countries that are far apart are connected via a complex web of ocean pathways (see interactive website https://marinelitter.coaps.fsu.edu). The tables summarizing the statistics for all world countries are accessible from the supplemental information in .pdf or .csv formats.

塑料是海洋垃圾中丰度最高的品类，全球各大洋及海域均有检出，即便在远离人类活动的偏远区域亦有分布。由于塑料在海洋中留存周期极长，该问题已成为国际社会高度关注的重大环境议题。为回应国际社会在管控海洋塑料主要来源过程中聚焦的一系列核心问题，本研究采用粒子追踪模拟（particle tracking simulations）方法，对管理不当的塑料废弃物的海洋运移过程进行模拟，并针对两大关键问题开展全球尺度的定量评估：(1) 某一国家向海洋排放的海洋垃圾最终会流向何处；(2) 某一国家海岸带检出的海洋垃圾源自何处。模型模拟得到的海洋垃圾整体分布与我们可获取的有限观测数据吻合度良好；研究结果同时揭示，相隔万里的国家可通过复杂的海洋输运网络实现关联，相关详情可访问交互式网站https://marinelitter.coaps.fsu.edu。汇总全球所有国家统计数据的表格可在补充材料中以.pdf或.csv格式获取。