{"id":3337,"date":"2015-06-05T14:19:52","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T14:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scotland.gov.uk\/coastal-monitoring\/?p=3337"},"modified":"2019-04-04T10:46:04","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T09:46:04","slug":"world-oceans-day-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/marine-scotland\/2015\/06\/05\/world-oceans-day-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"World Oceans Day 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, 8 June, is World Oceans Day<\/a>. The theme for this year is Healthy oceans, healthy planet. <\/em>Our vision for Scottish seas includes the phrase \u2018\u2026. healthy, \u2026. biologically diverse marine and coastal environments\u2019<\/strong>. In our daily research, monitoring, assessment and management of human activities, we contribute to the delivery of our vision.\"World<\/a><\/p>\n

This year, particular effort is being made to stop plastic pollution. Marine litter is a key area of research and monitoring overseen by Dr Marie Russell<\/a> and Dr Lynda Webster<\/a>. We are developing techniques with others in Scotland in respect of the assessment of microplastics (pieces of plastic less than 5 mm in size). To celebrate World Oceans Day we are launching our new Topic Sheet on the Scottish Microplastics Research Group (SMRG) which is co-chaired by Dr Marie Russell and Dr Brian Quinn (University of the West of Scotland) with which we fund a PhD student investigating microplastics. Please take a few minutes to read the new topic sheet and find out how Marine Scotland Science is establishing baseline data on microplastics in Scottish seas.<\/p>\n

Prof Colin Moffat<\/a>
\nHead of Science – Marine Scotland<\/strong><\/p>\n

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