Tia Jenkins, Bhaleka Persaud, Win Cowger, Kathy Szigeti, Dominique G. Roche, Erin Clary, Stephanie Slowinski, Benjamin Lei, Amila Abeynayaka, Ebenezer S. Nyadjro, Thomas Maes, Leah Thornton Hampton, Melanie Bergmann, Julian Aherne, Sherri A. Mason, John Honek,Fereidoun Rezanezhad, Amy Lusher, Andy M. Booth, Rodney D. L. Smith, Philippe Van Cappellen (2022). Where are the Microplastics Data to Support Water Quality Management and Environmental Policy?. Proceedings of the GWF Annual Open Science Meeting, May 16-18, 2022.

Microplastics pollution is a global hazard with many far-reaching consequences to the health of water. The rapidly growing corpus of microplastics research and its data-scape influences research and funding priorities, public perception, and policy development. Ensuring that microplastics data are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) is essential. This bibliographic analysis investigated the current state of data management and reporting in the microplastics research community, with a focus on publicly accessible datasets associated with published studies. We assessed published microplastics datasets and their metadata attributes available on ten open access data repositories for whether the (meta)data were findable and accessible using a consistent evaluation framework. While 6608 peer reviewed microplastics articles are available in the Web of Science search between 2013 and 2021, only 279 microplastics datasets are available in open access repositories for the same period. While the number of open access datasets has increased over time, the growth rate is much lower than that of peer reviewed articles published in the same time period. Of the datasets available, 79.4% were immediately accessible, while 20.4% were either completely inaccessible or additional approval was required to access the data. The geographic regions the available data were sampled from were North America (12.8%), Europe (13.4%), marine and estuarine environments (26.2%), with 11.4% from Australia, South America, Asia, and Africa. Approximately 20.8% of the datasets were collected in a lab while a location was not provided for 15.4%. We provide insights gained from this study to inform practical recommendations that will assist the microplastics community in strengthening its data management practices.

First Author: Tia Jenkins, University of Waterloo
Additional Authors: Bhaleka Persaud, University of Waterloo, Win Cowger, Moore Institute for Plastic Pollution Research, Kathy Szigeti, University of Waterloo, Dominique G. Roche, Carleton University, University of Neuchâtel, Erin Clary, Digital Research Alliance of Canada, Stephanie Slowinski, University of Waterloo, Benjamin Lei, University of Waterloo, Amila Abeynayaka, Institute for Global Environment Strategies, Ebenezer S. Nyadjro, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centres for Environmental Information, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University, Thomas Maes, GRID-Arendal, Leah Thornton Hampton, Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, Melanie Bergmann, Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Julian Aherne, Trent University, Sherri A. Mason, Pennsylvania State University, The Behrend College, John Honek, University of Waterloo, Fereidoun Rezanezhad, University of Waterloo, Amy Lusher, Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Andy M. Booth, SINTEF Ocean, Rodney D. L. Smith, University of Waterloo, Philippe Van Cappellen, University of Waterloo.