Wholescape Approach to Marine Management

November 2020

The Wholescape Approach to Marine Management project was funded by the Marine Management Organisation and channeled through The Rivers Trust. The project ran for 18 months, and we worked in partnership with South Cumbria Rivers Trust, Wyre Rivers Trust and the Morecambe Bay Partnership. The project aimed to examine environmental issues that effect rivers and estuaries in the Morecambe Bay area, with a particular focus on issues related to plastics. Lune RTs own part of the project focused on assessing the presence of micro-plastics in river sediment. Sediment samples were taken on the River Lune at a number of sites from Junction 36 down into the estuary. Lancaster University analysed these samples to assess the presence, prevalence and type of micro-plastics. The results indicated the presence of relatively large quantities of micro-plastics (the level varying between sites) with a high prevalence for ‘fragment’micro-plastics (i.e. which have broken down from larger pieces of plastic). We completed the project in November 2020.