Plastic pollution assessment and monitoring – harmonization and standardization of methods- EUROqCHARM
Published June 30, 2022 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Current State of Microplastic Pollution Research Data: Trends in Availability and Sources of Open Data

Creators

  • 1. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada
  • 2. Moore Institute for Plastic Pollution Research, Long Beach, CA, United States
  • 3. Davis Centre Library, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada
  • 4. Department of Biology, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada/Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
  • 5. Digital Research Alliance of Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada
  • 6. Institute for Global Environment Strategies (IGES), Kanagawa, Japan
  • 7. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), Stennis Space Center, Starkville, MS, United States/Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University, Stennis Space Center, Starkville, MS, United States
  • 8. GRID-Arendal, Arendal, Norway
  • 9. Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP), Costa Mesa, CA, United States
  • 10. Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Bremerhaven, Germany
  • 11. School of Environment, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada
  • 12. The Behrend College, Pennsylvania State University, Erie, PA, United States
  • 13. Department of Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada
  • 14. Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Oslo, Norway
  • 15. SINTEF Ocean, Trondheim, Norway

Description

The rapid growth in microplastic pollution research is influencing funding priorities, environmental policy, and public perceptions of risks to water quality and environmental and human health. Ensuring that environmental microplastics research data are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) is essential to inform policy and mitigation strategies. We present a bibliographic analysis of data sharing practices in the environmental microplastics research community, highlighting the state of openness of microplastics data. A stratified (by year) random subset of 785 of 6,608 microplastics articles indexed in Web of Science indicates that, since 2006, less than a third (28.5%) contained a data sharing statement. These statements further show that most often, the data were provided in the articles’ supplementary material (38.8%) and only 13.8% via a data repository. Of the 279 microplastics datasets found in online data repositories, 20.4% presented only metadata with access to the data requiring additional approval. Although increasing, the rate of microplastic data sharing still lags behind that of publication of peer-reviewed articles on environmental microplastics. About a quarter of the repository data originated from North America (12.8%) and Europe (13.4%). Marine and estuarine environments are the most frequently sampled systems (26.2%); sediments (18.8%) and water (15.3%) are the predominant media. Of the available datasets accessible, 15.4% and 18.2% do not have adequate metadata to determine the sampling location and media type, respectively. We discuss five recommendations to strengthen data sharing practices in the environmental microplastic research community.

Files

Jenkins et al. 2022_Frontiers_ Microplastic data.pdf

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Additional details

Funding

EUROqCHARM – EUROpean quality Controlled Harmonization Assuring Reproducible Monitoring and assessment of plastic pollution 101003805
European Commission