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UTENRIKS-Internasjonale forhold - utenriks- og sikkerhetspolitikk og norske interesser

Mapping marine litter in the Norwegian and Russian Arctic Seas

Alternative title: Kartlegging av marine søppel i norsk og russisk arktisk hav

Awarded: NOK 4.8 mill.

While plastic appeared to be a great invention as described by the french philosopher Roland Barthes in Mythologies (1957) who used the term "a plasticized world" for the benefit of all, today the enthusiasm for plastic would certainly not be the same anymore. 8.3 billion tons of plastic have been produced between 1950 to 2015 of which some ends up in the sea generating the so-called "marine litter" which does poorly degrade, accumulate on the sea floor and on the shoreline causing major visual impact but also sever harm to marine life throughout the ecological chain. In this project, in collaboration with Russian institutions we have performed the following activities in 2019 and 2021 to map, quantify and characterize litter in the Norwegian and Russian Arctic: 1. Performing litter mapping on the beach of Finmark, Troms and Nordland and Novaja Zemlja using standard methodology 2. We have performed transect with aerial drones fitted with different sensors to detect, quantify and map litter on the beach of Finmark, Troms, Lofoten, Murmansk bay. 3. We have harmonized our mapping methodologies between Russian and Norway and trained personnel from the Murmansk Marine Biological Institute. 4. Satellite picture of high resolution of the beach of Finmark and Troms were purchased 5. Machine learning has been applied to the drone and satellite picture for developing automatized mapping. 6. Among results, we found out that HD satellite picture coupled with proper picture treatment allows to identify and map the presence of stranded fishing nets on the shore. 7. Short distance drones appeared to be of great interest to identify beach with plastic. We believe that the tested methodology can be transferred to long distance drones for an extensive mapping. 8. Scenarios of ocean modelling have been run at different seasons and with various particle discharge location. The modelling results show the drift of the plastic particles with very different paths and fate depending of season which appear to be one of the main driver for the fate of offshore plastic. Further, on site observation confirmed the prediction of the model 9. We have engaged tourists in citizen science to collect data on shore litter in Franz Josef land and in Svalbard although this task was put to an end owing to the Covid situation likewise with plastic collected by UNIS cruises around Svalbard. 10. We developed a web mapping interface combining all the sites in both Norway and Russia where data from the project was collected and produced. The interface (https://malinor.grida.no/) allows users to get extract meta data (field sites, methodology, data types etc).

The MALINOR project has participated to raise awareness among the public and the stakeholders that fishery activities participate predominantly to plastic discharges in the Norwegian and Russian Barents Sea. Further, while drones can be instrumental in quickly mapping the presence of plastic litter on the shores to help cleaning team to focus on where the majority of the plastic is accumulated for an efficient cleaning, satellite pictures help detect fishing nets (location and size) in order to plan the manpower resource and effort needed to remove the nets. Last, through an intense collaboration between Norwegian and Russian institutions, a common understanding has been generated throughout the progress of the project in order to tackle the plastic issue in the Arctic.

While plastic appeared to be a great invention as described by the french philosopher Roland Barthes in Mythologies (1957) who used the term "a plasticized world" for the benefit of all, today the enthusiasm for plastic would certainly not be the same anymore. 8.3 billion tons of plastic have been produced between 1950 to 2015 of which some ends up in the sea generating the so-called "marine litter" which does poorly degrade, accumulate on the sea floor and on the shoreline causing major visual impact but also sever harm to marine life throughout the ecological chain. Marine litter are also present and increasing in the Arctic. While some mapping and characterization has been done, major gaps of knowledge to understand where the litter is distributed throughout the Norwegian, Barents, Kara Seas and the high Arctic and what its characteristics and sources are remain unexplored. In this project, the main objective is to map areas of marine litter and describe its characteristics in the Arctic in collaboration with Russian institutions with a multi-disciplinary approach. We will extract data from the scientific & grey literature on the distribution of litter in the Norwegian Russian Arctic, identify ongoing activities on this topic both in Norway and Russia, build up a joint Norwegian Russian database, perform mapping using multidisciplinary approaches (robotics, digital solutions, GIS, satellite pictures), Collect offshore data using research cruises of opportunity, develop a predictive tool for litter distribution, and, importantly disseminate the findings to the students, public and policy makers both nationally in Norway and Russia and also internationally (EU, UNEP, Arctic Council). Through such a project, we believe that thorough science along with professional communication to kids, education of students and delivering high quality information to policy makers, the enthusiasm for plastic may come back up again!

Publications from Cristin

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UTENRIKS-Internasjonale forhold - utenriks- og sikkerhetspolitikk og norske interesser