Surface water plastics in the Eastern Arctic

• Main Author: Liboiron, M (via Mendeley Data)
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Interdisciplinary sciences; Arctic; Frobisher Bay; Greenland; Nunavut; Qaqortoq; inuit; Iqaluit; Labrador Sea; Narsaq
• Online Access: http://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:nl:ui:13-y7-flaq; https://easy.dans.knaw.nl/ui/datasets/id/easy-dataset:210243

This study finds an average of 0.018 plastic particles/m2 in surface waters near the capital city of Iqaluit in Tasiujarjuaq (Frobisher Bay), Nunavut (0.014 particles/m2), and in the Labrador Sea close to Qaqortoq and Narsaq in southwest Greenland (0.026 particles/m2). While a comparison with other studies shows the abundance of plastics in the study area holds with a broad increase in plastic abundance in the north compared to the south, within and across study areas, latitude does not appear to be a significant factor in plastic abundance. Moreover, some characteristics of recovered plastics such as morphology and colour support local origins, while others support long range transport. Research moving forward should consider relative scales in spatial trends of plastic abundance. Samples for this study were collected in 2018 by a team of settler, non-Inuit authors using a Manta surface water trawl with a net mesh size of 335μm, and each trawl was conducted for 30 minutes. The cut off size for this data set is 425μm. Sample collection sites were designed to answer two specific questions. First, whether burned plastics that might have originated in the Iqaluit landfill were moving from land into Tasiujarjuaq, a local hypothesis. Sampling locations in Tasiujarjuaq are grouped close to Iqaluit and further in the bay to test that hypothesis. Secondly, the site in southwest Greenland was used as a comparison to determine whether the abundance and types of plastics in Tasiujarjuaq (both near Iqaluit and farther into the bay) were markedly different than those of a location in another current but at a similar latitude. This sample collection design this provides a snapshot of plastic profiles in key locations, and is limited to wider generalizations given its relatively low sample size (see the section below on statistical power), and that samples were collected in the late summer months rather than across multiple seasons. This data was used for the publication: "Abundance and types of plastic pollution in surface ...