Anthropogenic Beach Litter and Impact on Habitats

A special issue of Environments (ISSN 2076-3298).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2020) | Viewed by 7951

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Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
Interests: environment and sustainable development; waste treatment; polymers; environmental monitoring; ecology; ornithology
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Co-Guest Editor
ENEA Centro Ricerche Casaccia, Rome, Italy

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the last century, beaches in marine or freshwater ecosystems have been subjected to diverse interests not always compatible with environmental protection and conservation. Consequently, the increase in anthropogenic litter is responsible not only for aesthetic degradation but, in particular, for extremely severe environmental damage everywhere: for example, the impact of plastic is a pandemic phenomenon involving the whole biosphere. In fact, not only birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates are involved, but also the vegetation suffers from the effects of anthropogenic litter.

Many of the littoral habitats are critical to the survival of several species; therefore, the number of studies investigating the impact of beach litter on habitats is steadily increasing. These studies show interesting interdisciplinary collaborations between biologists, botanists, chemists, eco-toxicologists, and environmental scientists.

This Special Issue aims to evaluate the impact of anthropogenic litter present in marine, lake, and river beaches on the functionality of ecosystems. The main goal of this Special Issue is to answer questions such as: 1) How does beach litter affect the environment? 2) Is there a relationship between beach litter and biodiversity dynamics? 3) How can we measure/determine the impact of beach litter on different habitats? 4) What concrete actions can we take to reduce the impact of beach litter?

Dr. Loris Pietrelli
Dr. Patrizia Menegoni
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Marine litter
  • Freshwater litter
  • Coastal ecosystems
  • Riparian ecosystems
  • Beach litter
  • Microplastics
  • Pollution ecology
  • Socio economic implication of beach litter
  • Contribution of citizen scientists to the monitoring of beach litter

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 753 KiB  
Article
Small Environmental Actions Need of Problem-Solving Approach: Applying Project Management Tools to Beach Litter Clean-Ups
by Corrado Battisti, Gianluca Poeta, Federico Romiti and Lorenzo Picciolo
Environments 2020, 7(10), 87; https://doi.org/10.3390/environments7100087 - 11 Oct 2020
Cited by 43 | Viewed by 7334
Abstract
Clean-ups can be considered real conservation actions since beach litter may impact many ecosystem components. However, although these actions are quite easy to carry out, we think that they need to follow specific criteria and clear planning. Contrariwise, an unplanned clean-up could lead [...] Read more.
Clean-ups can be considered real conservation actions since beach litter may impact many ecosystem components. However, although these actions are quite easy to carry out, we think that they need to follow specific criteria and clear planning. Contrariwise, an unplanned clean-up could lead to counter-productive—or even harmful—consequences to the fragile dune ecosystem; e.g., excessive trampling and/or extreme sand removal. Here, we defined a road map for implementing beach clean-ups according to the logic of problem solving and project management, also adding a flow chart. More particularly, we subdivided the clean-up project into different steps as follows: context analysis, input and planning, process, monitoring (outputs and outcomes) and adaptation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anthropogenic Beach Litter and Impact on Habitats)
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