Three summers of field work (2023-2025) focused on the land promontories of Spitsbergen (peninsula, cape, oden, kapp, huken etc) to indicate the land forms that are most important for the accumulation of drifting debris, including species that are presently colonising Svalbard with the ongoing climate change. Driftwood and macroplastic liter were used as proxies for this proces, and North West sector of Spitsbergen was found to be the area where most of the outhern transport is gathered in retained.
Over 220 sites around Svalbard were visited for the macroplastic count (directly on site) and simultaneous driftwood count (satellite imagery). As was expected the land promontories facing NW of Svalbard were the sites with highest density of macroplastic items as well as highest driftwood count. The fishing remains (nets, ropes, boxes, buoys) were the most common items, followed by plastic bottles and household remains. Range of estimated macroplastic mass goes from 123 to 519 tonnes on Svalbard (along 77% of its entire coastline). Encrusting organisms (mussels, barnacles, bryozoans and hydrozoans) were found on large items and on the NW coast only. The topography of the shore (low sedimentary coast versus rocky reflective coast) was of key importance for the litter accumulation. All source data (tables with georeferenced plastic count, photos of the litter) are stored in the data repository at IOPAN and are available free on the project web page Table 2 Summary of macroplastic count:
https://old.iopan.pl/projects/key_coastal_points/index.html