Marine Litter Occurrence In The River-Influenced Black Sea Coast

Composition and abundance of anthropogenic litter were investigated on adjacent coastal beaches of three rivers flowing into the North-Western and Southern Black Sea. A single sampling survey was conducted during the period August - September 2019 within 4 sectors of sandy beaches with different level of urbanization situated at the Romanian and Turkish littoral of the Black Sea. The results of study evinced total of 3916 items with the maximum litter accumulations found on the Turkish coast. The most-represented items of anthropogenic litter in the evaluated samples were plastics, paper/cardboard, wood and glass/ceramic. Plastics made up the main share of litter on Black Sea coastal beaches near the river mouths (65-95%). The types of plastic items ranged from 15 to 54 among the sites, of which cigarette butts, plastic pieces (2.5 cm > < 50 cm), polystyrene and plastic caps/lids drinks constituted the highest number of artificial polymeric material. The characteristic of plastic litter composition of each selected Black Sea beach is attributable to river and human influences. Fragments and small plastic items were predominant for most of the beaches, including wild beaches and those that had lower levels of urbanization, confirming that riverine outflows have an important impact on plastic litter pollution on Black Sea coastal beaches.