We appreciate all the time and energy COASSTers have put into marine debris surveys – some for nearly the last decade! Unfortunately, today we are writing because we have made the difficult decision to suspend the COASST Marine Debris survey module, effective January 31, 2025.
There are several reasons behind this decision, but the primary one is that we are unable to continue to fulfill our promise that any data coming into our program gets used rather than simply archived. We never want surveyor efforts to go unacknowledged, but the last few funding cycles have not resulted in support for ongoing analysis or outreach for our marine debris dataset.
For COASSTers interested in continuing their citizen science research efforts, we have put together a few great options moving forward:
- Continue surveys: COASSTers who would like to continue contributing to marine debris monitoring on local beaches have the option to become beach monitors with the NOAA Marine Debris program. We are lucky to have close partners within that program, and we would like to invite you to a webinar on January 23rd at 6pm, titled “NOAA Marine Debris for COASSTers”. We will be joined by NOAA Marine Debris coordinators Hillary Burgess (formerly COASST science coordinator) and Jess Myers to outline what this monitoring option looks like, and the next steps for COASSTers interested in joining the program.
- End surveys: Without their favorite topic, COASSTers may wish to withdraw entirely from COASST. Let us know, and we will support you through that process. (You will not need to mail back your kits, and we can refund your deposits or donate them to our continuing monitoring programs, as you indicate.)
- Join COASST beached birds: COASST Debris-ers may wish to continue surveying beaches for COASST through our beached birds program. Folks who would like to take part in a virtual training can sign up for our next events: https://coasst.org/join-our-team/trainings-events/
Whatever pathway you choose, we ask all COASSTers to schedule their last debris surveys in December or January.
The COASST program will continue to support marine debris research in several ways moving forward. Here are a few of the ways we will ensure surveyors’ hard work makes a difference:
- Research publications: The COASST debris dataset has been formally analyzed twice already, and we have a third analysis partially underway, looking at the biofouled materials that wash up along our coastline. As soon as we can identify a researcher interested in finishing this analysis, we will publish and share those results with COASSTers.
- Continued research: Even though we will be ending ongoing data collection, there are a few additional analyses that we would like to explore (given funding) with the data that COASSTers have collected to date. Thanks to you, we have a fantastic set of data to look at comparisons of different COASST characteristics across different geographic scales.
- Data availability: The entire COASST marine debris dataset will soon be published in a publicly-downloadable format through NOAA, to allow easy access to anyone who might have a use for these data. We will share more details once we have the final web address for the dataset, which will be hosted by the National Centers for Environmental Information. Partners reading this should feel free to reach out to us for more information about use of the COASST dataset.
We’d like to end with our deepest thanks for our community’s dedication to debris surveying over the last decade. We are available for any questions you may have at coasst@uw.edu.