Using machine learning and beach cleanup data to explain litter quantities along the Dutch North Sea coast

Kaandorp, Mikael L. A.; Ypma, Stefanie L.; Boonstra, Marijke; Dijkstra, Henk A.; van Sebille, Erik

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-18-269-2022

Articles | Volume 18, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-18-269-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-18-269-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 1

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

03 Mar 2022

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 03 Mar 2022

Using machine learning and beach cleanup data to explain litter quantities along the Dutch North Sea coast

Mikael L. A. Kaandorp, Stefanie L. Ypma, Marijke Boonstra, Henk A. Dijkstra, and Erik van Sebille

Data sets

Beach cleanup data Marijke Boonstra https://doi.org/10.24416/UU01-NVGL3G

Model code and software

Code to run the data analysis Mikael L. A. Kaandorp, E. van Sebille https://doi.org/10.24416/UU01-NVGL3G

Short summary

A large amount of marine litter, such as plastics, is located on or around beaches. Both the total amount of this litter and its transport are poorly understood. We investigate this by training a machine learning model with data of cleanup efforts on Dutch beaches between 2014 and 2019, obtained by about 14 000 volunteers. We find that Dutch beaches contain up to 30 000 kg of litter, largely depending on tides, oceanic transport, and how exposed the beaches are.