Bight ’23 leverages harmonized measurement methods to monitor microplastics regionally

The Southern California Bight 2023 Regional Monitoring Program’s Trash study element has successfully applied a set of recently harmonized methods for measuring microplastics levels in the coastal ocean to conduct a first-of-its-kind regional assessment of how microplastics contamination has spread across the seafloor and accumulated in the bodies of shellfish.

The microplastics assessment, which Bight ’23 participants signed off on in August, leveraged microplastics sampling methods co-developed by SCCWRP to generate high-quality, directly comparable Southern California measurement data for sediment and shellfish tissue. Researchers have historically been forced to assign a high degree of uncertainty to microplastics measurement data generated via various sample collection and analysis methods.

The study’s findings, which are described in a pair of draft manuscripts submitted to two journals for publication, serve as a proof of concept for how California could build capacity to routinely monitor microplastics levels in coastal environments.

In April, the Bight ’23 Trash study element published its final assessment report on the spread of larger-sized, non-microplastic trash items across Southern California’s coastal ocean.