Publications by authors named "Juan F Saldarriaga-Velez"
Article Synopsis
- Coastal lagoons serve as critical transitional zones between land and marine systems, playing vital ecological and economic roles while facing threats like microplastic pollution.
- Research has identified 57 studies (mostly published post-2019) that examine microplastic levels in 50 coastal lagoons, with a notable prevalence in populated areas vs. protected regions.
- Current studies show limited methodological consistency, with most focusing on single environmental compartments, highlighting the need for more integrated approaches to understand microplastic dynamics and guide effective environmental management.
Microplastics are emerging pollutants that have been found in different environmental matrices of marine and coastal ecosystems, where they can generate harmful ecological impacts. Little is known about the current state of microplastic pollution in fragile tropical lagoon ecosystems, such as Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta (CGSM) in the Caribbean coast of Colombia. This study assesses microplastic pollution in surface waters and sediments, and the occurrence of microplastic ingestion in commercially important fish species from CGSM.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMarine litter in mangroves comes mainly from poor waste management practices and its abundance is increased by natural catastrophes occurrence that affects coastal settlements, as occurred in November-2020, when two hurricanes (ETA and IOTA) destroyed homes and deposited litters in mangroves of the Providencia and Santa Catalina islands, in the Colombian Caribbean. This study aims to assess the litter pollution in mangrove forests of these islands after Hurricane IOTA. Litter pollution was high in mangroves near urban areas and low in mangroves with little urban influence.
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