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The impact of the anthropause caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on beach debris accumulation in Maui, Hawaiʻi
The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent travel restrictions led to a considerable reduction in tourism and human activity on Maui, presenting a unique opportunity to study debris accumulation on local beaches during changing levels of human activities. Standardized daily debris accumulation surveys wer...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10584821/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37853032 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-44944-4 |
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author | Currie, Jens J. Sullivan, Florence A. Beato, Elizabeth Machernis, Abigail F. Olson, Grace L. Stack, Stephanie H. |
author_facet | Currie, Jens J. Sullivan, Florence A. Beato, Elizabeth Machernis, Abigail F. Olson, Grace L. Stack, Stephanie H. |
author_sort | Currie, Jens J. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent travel restrictions led to a considerable reduction in tourism and human activity on Maui, presenting a unique opportunity to study debris accumulation on local beaches during changing levels of human activities. Standardized daily debris accumulation surveys were completed at two beach sites in Maui, Hawai ‘i before (2017) as well as throughout the initial year of the pandemic (2020–2021) and allowed for the assessment of pandemic-related restrictions on marine debris accumulation trends. Throughout the pandemic, reduced beach use due to higher lockdown levels had significant impacts on debris accumulation at both sites, but only one of the two sites experienced a significant decrease (~ 90% reduction) in debris accumulation rates when compared to the same months in 2017. Daily accumulation rates across two sites increased from an average of 16 items/100 m during peak lockdown levels to 43 items/100 m when restrictions eased. The observed fluctuations in debris accumulation rates, driven by changes in tourism and travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic emphasize the importance of proactive measures to protect the natural environment, including source reduction and effective legislation for waste prevention. By addressing both local and remote sources of debris and focusing on reducing waste at its source, it is possible to mitigate the impacts of debris accumulation on coastal environments and marine life in Hawaiʻi. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10584821 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-105848212023-10-20 The impact of the anthropause caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on beach debris accumulation in Maui, Hawaiʻi Currie, Jens J. Sullivan, Florence A. Beato, Elizabeth Machernis, Abigail F. Olson, Grace L. Stack, Stephanie H. Sci Rep Article The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent travel restrictions led to a considerable reduction in tourism and human activity on Maui, presenting a unique opportunity to study debris accumulation on local beaches during changing levels of human activities. Standardized daily debris accumulation surveys were completed at two beach sites in Maui, Hawai ‘i before (2017) as well as throughout the initial year of the pandemic (2020–2021) and allowed for the assessment of pandemic-related restrictions on marine debris accumulation trends. Throughout the pandemic, reduced beach use due to higher lockdown levels had significant impacts on debris accumulation at both sites, but only one of the two sites experienced a significant decrease (~ 90% reduction) in debris accumulation rates when compared to the same months in 2017. Daily accumulation rates across two sites increased from an average of 16 items/100 m during peak lockdown levels to 43 items/100 m when restrictions eased. The observed fluctuations in debris accumulation rates, driven by changes in tourism and travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic emphasize the importance of proactive measures to protect the natural environment, including source reduction and effective legislation for waste prevention. By addressing both local and remote sources of debris and focusing on reducing waste at its source, it is possible to mitigate the impacts of debris accumulation on coastal environments and marine life in Hawaiʻi. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-10-18 /pmc/articles/PMC10584821/ /pubmed/37853032 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-44944-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Currie, Jens J. Sullivan, Florence A. Beato, Elizabeth Machernis, Abigail F. Olson, Grace L. Stack, Stephanie H. The impact of the anthropause caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on beach debris accumulation in Maui, Hawaiʻi |
title | The impact of the anthropause caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on beach debris accumulation in Maui, Hawaiʻi |
title_full | The impact of the anthropause caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on beach debris accumulation in Maui, Hawaiʻi |
title_fullStr | The impact of the anthropause caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on beach debris accumulation in Maui, Hawaiʻi |
title_full_unstemmed | The impact of the anthropause caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on beach debris accumulation in Maui, Hawaiʻi |
title_short | The impact of the anthropause caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on beach debris accumulation in Maui, Hawaiʻi |
title_sort | impact of the anthropause caused by the covid-19 pandemic on beach debris accumulation in maui, hawaiʻi |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10584821/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37853032 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-44944-4 |
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