2021 Ligurian-Tyrrhenian Sea
The Mediterranean Basin is the cradle of world civilization and a huge and sensitive ecosystem of marine biodiversity.
Today about 320 million tourists spend their holidays at the Mediterranean Sea annually. This tourism creates a 40% increase in marine litter during the summer period above and beyond the 208-760 kg of solid urban waste produced annually by the 150 million people living by the Mediterranean basin.
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This expedition is part of a 10 years monitoring project, which started in 2018. We would like to evaluate if there are any changes that can be detected with regard to the quantity and spatial and temporal distribution of microplastics found in the area(s).
Expedition Partners:
2021 AZORES
The Azores are a remote group of islands in the Atlantic at the very edge of the North Atlantic Gyre.
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This expedition will be the second of its kind and a follow-up expedition to our expedition in 2019, which was the first one ever that has been conducted in the Azores, allowing us to predict and monitor the number of microplastics in this remote area.
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In order to obtain the most accurate picture possible, detailed data on the quantity and composition of the materials found it is needed.
Expedition Partner:
2021 aeolian islands - Sicily
Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 20 regions of Italy. North of Sicily lie the Aeolian Islands, a volcanic archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea named after the demigod of the winds Aeolus.
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This expedition is a collaboration with the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn. We will collect surface water microplastic samples around the Aeolian islands for the very first time and combine the data with fish ingested microplastic data collected by the marine researchers from Anton Dohrn to see the connection between the microplastic floating and the impact it has on the ecosystem.
Expedition Partner:
2021 Cyclades - greece
The Cyclades are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece. The name refers to the islands around ("cyclic") the sacred island of Delos, while the largest island of the Cyclades is Naxos. The culture of Greece was evolved over thousands of years and is widely considered to be the cradle of modern Western culture. Ancient Grecian thinkers and architects laid the intellectual foundations of many fields of study.
This expedition is a collaboration with the Hellenic Centre of Marine Research (HCMR). We will collect surface water microplastic samples around the Cyclades for the very first time with a focus on collecting smaller-sized microplastics below 0.3mm.
Expedition Partners:
