Marine Debris Project Final Report 2014

Citizen science coastal surveysTransect surveysAt the selected coastal location, wherever possible, groups randomly selected the direction from the accesspoint (right or left) to where transects were conducted. In some cases this may not have been possible dueto insufficient coastline from the point of access. To avoid bias (e.g. the effect of higher traffic at the accesspoint), wherever possible, participants were asked to walk a minimum of 50 meters from the access pointto the location of the first transect. Participants were also asked to locate each subsequent transect aminimum of 50 meters distant from the previous transects. Transects were distributed evenly across therange of substrate types (beach, cobble, boulder, bare rock, mud, mangrove) at each site. At each sitegroups were asked to carry out a minimum of three transects. If debris was not found in these first threetransects, groups should have continued to add transects until either debris was found or a maximum of sixtransects was reached. Transects ran perpendicular from the water to two meters into the backshorevegetation. Transects were two meters in width, and schools typically had two observers looking for debrison each one meter wide swath (for a total of four observers per transect). An additional (fifth) studentwould record debris items noted. One student photo documented the process, transects and litter, anotherstudent collected litter in a collection bag, and another student would help keep track of distance along thetransect line. The observers walked along a meter tape running from the water to the backshorevegetation, reporting all items observed from upright standing position, as per Year One report (AppendixC). The total number of observers searching for debris items was also recorded for observer effortreporting. Upon return to the classroom, transect data were then entered into the national marine debrisonline database.Emu Parade surveysThe Emu Parade is a simpler method for sampling marine debris than is the more detailed transectmethodology and works effectively for primary and junior secondary groups and for larger groups. For an‘Emu Parade’ coastal debris survey, students were typically divided into groups of 10 or fewer, with eachgroup designated a specific section of the beach. Instead of surveying a 2 m wide transect there is a fixedarea which is searched by citizen scientists. These areas or wide ‘transects’ are typically 30m wide (can bewider) along the beach. The length of each transect was variable, but followed the consistent methodologyof transects (e.g. from the water line up to two meters into the continuous backshore vegetation). Toremain consistent with the transect methodology, the emu parade survey is carried out at least 50 m fromthe main beach access point, wherever possible. Where multiple surveys are conducted, they are placed atleast 25 m apart. Typically debris from each ‘parade survey’ was collected and returned to the classroom44 | Understanding the effects of marine debris on wildlife