ASSESSMENT OF BARENTS SEA FLOATING MARINE MACRO LITTER POLLUTION DURING THE VESSEL SURVEY IN 2019

The relevance of the research is caused by the increasing accumulation of plastic debris in the marine environment, which has raised serious concerns in the scientific community as well as in the general public. Increasing litter concentrations have a growing impact on living organisms, the quality of marine waters and the ecosystem as a whole, often affecting living and health conditions of human beings as well. Taking into account the global water masses circulation, environmental conditions and constantly increasing anthropogenic pressure related to the global warming, the Arctic could potentially serve as a place for the permanent accumulation of plastic waste. Furthermore, the Arctic ecosystem, considered as pristine and fragile environment, could particularly suffer from increasing litter occurrence. The main objectives of this work were the acquisition of new data on the potential accumulation areas of floating marine macro litter (FMML) in the Barents Sea, an initial assessment of the level of pollution by FMML in the Arctic and an analysis of potential sources. Methods. During the survey new methods for FMML monitoring were tested and combined with visual observations, a mobile application was used in order to simplify the harmonized collection of data. The results of this study present the first data on pollution of the eastern part of the Barents Sea by FMML. It was found that the average density corresponds to 3,5 items/ km(2). At some transects along the vessel route, numerous significant areas of accumulation of FMML were noted, which was not reported before in the scientific literature. Some practical recommendations were made in the conclusions to reduce the amount of litter entering the marine environment, and the need of regular monitoring studies was highlighted.