How Are Scientists Trying To Fix Ocean Pollution

In 2021, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO volition launch the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Evolution to raise a telephone call to action for conservation of marine ecosystems.

Oceans, which cover 70 pct of the Globe's surface, are our life-claret – notwithstanding nosotros are not careful stewards of our precious waters. Data from the Global Oxygen Network Oceans suggests that our oceans are getting "hot, sour and incoherent." Farther, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 2014 report found that oceans have absorbed 93 percentage of the global warming excess heat. Additionally, about 8 one thousand thousand tons of plastics enter our oceans every year, co-ordinate to contempo estimates, turning them soon into a "plastic soup."

G20 science academies to provide policy advice to governments

In 2016, as a side meeting to the G20 Top, the Science20 (S20) meeting was established, comprised of the national scientific discipline academies of the G20 countries. This year'due south host nation is Japan, and a series of ministerials and side meetings including the G20 Nation Leaders Summit in Osaka on June 28 and 29 will be held.

On March 6, the Science Council of Japan hosted the S20 in Tokyo with the theme of "Threats to Marine Ecosystems and Conservation of the Marine Environment – with Special Attention to Climate Change and Marine Plastic Waste."

Identifying prominent topics in marine science

Understanding scientific discipline trends helps to back up show-based policies. Our reports on sustainability scientific discipline and disaster scientific discipline are a few examples of our engagement on sustainability. To identify trends in marine science, nosotros used Elsevier's tool SciVal based on data from Scopus.

Primary recommendations from the S20 meeting

The S20 outcomes, summarized below, contribute to the The Ministerial Meeting on Energy Conversion for Sustainable Growth and the Global Environment besides as to the main G20 nation leaders summit. The full final statement of S20 meeting is on the homepage of Scientific discipline Council Nihon.

The G20 Academies of Sciences calls for:

Use of expert, evidence-based advice and cess using an ecosystem-based approach during farther development of marine resource then as to minimize undesirable impacts on the marine environment;
Redoubling actions aiming to reduce stressors on coastal and marine ecosystems such as climate change, overfishing and pollution;
Establishment of more recycling and free energy efficient practices at national, metropolis and local levels, through stakeholder collaboration and science-based target setting and its follow-up;
Capacity building for both essential enquiry infrastructures (including research vessels and remote and autonomous observation and survey capabilities) and human being capital through education;
Establishment of an improved data storage and management arrangement that ensures open access by scientists globally; and
Sharing of data gained through research activities carried out under all-encompassing and multinational collaboration, to expedite a comprehensive understanding of the global ocean and its dynamics.

Marine science does non take a simple periodical classification in the All Science Journal Classification (ASJC); it belongs in part to both aquatic science and oceanography. We therefore used a keyword search with suggestions from subject experts to give an overview of the area, using keywords such equally "sea" and "marine" in combination with "science," "policy" and "environmental," as well equally more than specific keywords such every bit "plastic waste" and "acidification." Some interesting conclusions could be drawn:

During 2013-17, marine science publications take grown annually at around seven percent on boilerplate, which is faster than the overall growth in scientific publications below 2 percent.
G20 member states are responsible for nigh 80 percent of the publication output in the field. The top 5 contributing countries are the United states of america, China, UK, Germany and France.
The field is, equally expected, international in nature. Most G20 fellow member states accept an international collaboration charge per unit in the field of more than half of the publications.

The science community is farther responding to urgent topics, such as marine plastics and climate alter. Using the recently developed SciVal Topic Prominence, where Scopus publications are clustered into topics using directly citations, we looked at which topics prove the nearly momentum, or prominence. Prominence is not based on volume of publications or growth charge per unit simply on citations, view counts and how cited the journals are, and it has been seen to correlate with funding.

Prominence is computed from three variables: citation count in yr n to papers published in year due north andn-1, Scopus Views Count in twelvemonth n to papers published in n and due north-ane, and boilerplate CiteScore for yr n.

Interestingly, but sadly unsurprising, the topic plastics; marine pollution; microplastic particles has the about momentum in marine science. This give-and-take cloud shows the about relevant keywords for this topic.

Word cloud on current research on marine plastic waste. (Source: SciVal Topic Prominence)

While the momentum is strong, the area is relatively small: in 2013 in that location were 123 publications on this topic, growing to almost 484 in 2017; that'due south a chemical compound annual growth charge per unit (CAGR) of 41 percent. Relating to climate change, for case, the topic sea acidification also has loftier momentum. It would be of involvement to look deeper into these trends to empathize how national priorities marshal with global challenges.

Stressing the urgency – highlights from the S20 discussions

In the public role of the S20 meeting, Prof. Biliana Cicin-Sain, President of the Global Ocean Forum, stated that changes in the climate accept pregnant impacts on the oceans, including ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation, sea level rise and altering currents, all of which have accelerated in contempo years. The G20 nations have already experienced significant impacts on their coasts, economies and people. Beyond G20, she said, these trends telephone call for urgent action and should exist addressed at all levels of policy for our planetary health. Further, she mentioned the importance of disaster scientific discipline to understand and mitigate confronting risks.

Prof. Yoshihisa Shirayama of the Japan Agency for Marine-World Scientific discipline and Technology, the key local organizer of the Japan S20, explained that while the fragile states of oceans are getting attention, there are knowledge gaps. Only v percent of the body of water surface has been mapped in high resolution, 99 percent of habitable marine areas lack basic biodiversity knowledge for their management, and there could be more than 1 meg marine species that are still unknown to scientific discipline.

Dr. Vladimir Ryabinin, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC-UNESCO), spoke about the current level of development of oceanography. He stated that the ocean science and fifty-fifty observations remain largely voluntary, while starting to support legally-binding treaties and address existential issues. Meanwhile, the science remains grossly nether-resourced and needs urgent mainstreaming.

Planning of the UN Decade of Ocean Scientific discipline for Sustainable Development (2012-2030) is underway. A number of breakthroughs are foreseen, namely in ocean mapping, observations, data management, ecosystem knowledge, bounding main and climate prediction, warning systems for ocean hazards, capacity development and ocean literacy. Progress in those areas is expected to enable chapters in marine spatial planning, coastal zone management, accommodation and mitigation of climate change, and strengthened ocean governance, towards meeting requirements of both adult and developing countries.

Elsevier'due south special collection – and deep dive into marine information

To support the S20 discussions with insights into current issues in marine environment and policies, Elsevier's Publishers for geography, planning and development (Sara Bebbington) and oceanography (Pablo Secades) invited their editors to curate a special upshot from across our ScienceDirect content.

The Principal Editor of Marine Policy, Associate Prof. Quentin Hanich, who leads the Australian National Center for Ocean Resource and Security (ANCORS), worked with Nihon Foundation/Nereus Program Policy Managing director Dr. Yoshitaka Ota and Program Manager Dr. Wilf Swartz and Nereus Fellows to select articles for a special issue from Elsevier's journals of Environmental Pollution, Marine Policy, Marine Pollution Bulletin and Sea & Littoral Management. Topics include marine pollution, climatic change bear upon on oceans, UN Sustainable Development Goals, coastal management, fisheries management, and high seas governance, with manufactures also defended to highlighting the latest developments on these issues from Japan.

The online issue – Threats to Marine Ecosystems and Conservation of the Marine Environment — is freely available until the end of 2019.

Conclusions

The message from the S20 meeting seems clear, as echoed past Dr. Hanich in the S20 Elsevier special collection: coastal states and beyond face unprecedented societal and governance challenges due to increasing and cumulative impacts on our marine ecosystems. Ocean management is complex with trade-offs between conservation, societal and sectoral interests, which often must exist addressed through international cooperation due to the transboundary nature of our oceanic ecosystems. To achieve sustainable evolution and conservation goals, we must improve the integration of science into marine policy, with an increasing demand for innovative multidisciplinary approaches that provide insights into social, cultural, economical and political concerns.

S20 was a call to activeness, every bit Prof. Cicin-Sain urged in her keynote:

Trust the scientific findings that have emerged already, and support your governments to act on the body of water and climate nexus.