Photo: Hawaii Wildlife Fund

NOAA Marine Plastic Activity Overview: 

1. Marine Debris Program Lessons Learned

2. NCEI Global Marine Microplastics Database 

and Map Portal

Hillary Burgess

Monitoring Coordinator 

NOAA Marine Debris Program / Genwest

Jennifer Webster

Oceanographer

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
Established in 2006 by Congress 

as federal lead for marine 

debris. 

Mission: to investigate and 

prevent the adverse impacts of 

marine debris.

NOAA 

Marine Debris Program
Photo: NOAA

Prevention

Removal

Research

Emergency Response

Regional Coordination

NOAA MARINE DEBRIS

PROGRAM PILLARS

Monitoring & Detection
Hapich, H., Cowger, W., Gray, A. et al. Trash Taxonomy Tool: 

harmonizing classification systems used to describe trash in 

environments. Micropl.& Nanopl. 2, 15 (2022)

At least 68 unique 

“Trash lists”

Classification matters.

Limited consensus.

Crosswalks exist.
Reporting units matter! Limited consensus.

Uhrin, A.V., Hong, S, Burgess, H.K., Lim, S., and Dettloff, K. Towards a North Pacific 

long-term monitoring program for ocean plastic pollution: A systematic review 

and recommendations for shorelines. Environmental Pollution, Volume 310, 

(2022).

81 micro and 

macro 

shoreline 

studies

Key to interoperability: 

Clear reportig of 

samping dimensions, 

location, effort controls, 

overall methods 
Reporting units matter! Limited consensus.

Uhrin, A.V., Hong, S, Burgess, H.K., Lim, S., and Dettloff, K. Towards a North Pacific 

long-term monitoring program for ocean plastic pollution: A systematic review 

and recommendations for shorelines. Environmental Pollution, Volume 310, 

(2022).

81 micro and 

macro 

shoreline 

studies

Key to interoperability: 

Clear reporting of 

sampling dimensions, 

location, effort controls, 

overall methods 
Data collection methods matter!

Common units comparability

At least 

we’re both 

fruit...
● Partnership with Ocean Conservancy & Australia 

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research 

Organization (CSIRO)

● Compared results from the Marine Debris Monitoring 

and Assessment Project, International Coastal Cleanup, 

CSIRO method

● All tested methods can generate items per length 

of shoreline

● Different field protocols yield different results, 

sometimes by orders of magnitude

Shoreline Macro Methods comparison:
Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project

(MDMAP)

● Shoreline macro debris 2.5cm+

● Investment in rigorous methods development, testing, 

and publication

● Tools to support high quality data collection using the 

published methods, for comparable data
Monitoring Toolbox

https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/monitoring-toolbox

• Data collection protocols

• Training videos

• Open database

○ Data from standard NOAA data collection methods 

only

• API

• Data Visualizations
Data Visualizations

Composition

all debris or by type

single site

selection of sites

Time series

single site

selection of sites

survey

Proportion of items by material and item type Average items per month per 100m length of shoreline

Viewable by: Viewable by:
National Centers for

Environmental Information (NCEI)

The NOAA NCEI Global Marine 

Microplastics Database and 

Map Portal

Date: January 25, 2023

Jennifer B. Webster1, Ebenezer Nyadjro1,2, Gunnar Kaltenberger1,4, 

Leonard Collazo1,4, Tiffany Toft1,4, Zhankun Wang3, Yee Lau1,2, Just 

Cebrian1,2, Tim Boyer3, Kirsten Larsen1

1. NOAA/ National Centers for Environmental Information, Stennis Space Center, MS

2. Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University, Stennis Space Center, MS

3. NOAA/ National Centers for Environmental Information, Silver Spring, MD

4. General Dynamics Information Technology, Inc, Stennis Space Center, MS
National Centers for Environmental Information - NCEI December 2022 13

NCEI Core Stewardship Services

Physical Archives

112 million+ 

pages of paper

Digital Archives

43+PB

Growth:

~5PB per 

year

OneStop Data Discovery Digital Data Delivery

Growth:

~2PB 

per year

15+PB

per year

~85,000 

Collections

24 million+

Granules

226,000+

reels of film

as of November 2021
National Centers for Environmental Information - NCEI December 2022 14

Scientific Data 

Stewardship

NOAA Observing Systems Research-quality products for 

decision making

Climate & Weather

● Climate Assessments

● Climate Normals

● Billion $ Disasters

● Drought Monitoring

Oceans & Coasts

● Tsunami Warning

● Coastal Digital Elevation 

Models

● Extended Continental Shelf

● World Ocean Database

Geophysics

● Space Weather

● World Magnetic Model

NOAA Data: High Impact, Global Reach
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) 15

• Need: A large-scale, long-term, comprehensive database and archive for 

marine microplastics

• Vision: Establish a global, microplastic database that will serve a diverse 

international customer base, who will use it, together with other NCEI 

archived data (e.g., Global Ocean Current Database, World Ocean Database, 

etc.), to attain a holistic understanding of the global microplastic problem.

• Goals:

○ Provide a robust, open access repository for archived information needed 

for marine microplastic debris monitoring

○ Advance a database and GIS web portal in concert with other microplastic 

observing efforts (e.g., GPML, MOEJ, EMODnet, EUROqCHARM, etc)

NCEI Efforts in Marine Microplastic Monitoring
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) 16

Issues:

● Currently lack of community standard

● NOAA participating on international working groups 

to establish standards for collecting & reporting 

Marine Plastic Monitoring Challenges
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) 17

Steps in Microplastic Database Development 

Identify microplastic 

datasets 

Obtain permission 

from data owners to 

add data to the 

NOAA archive and 

geodatabase

Post-archive quality 

control of Data for 

aggregation 

Quality control and 

archive original data 

and metadata in 

NOAA’s national 

data archive

Add data to the 

aggregated 

geodatabase for 

ArcGIS visualization

Identify microplastic 

datasets 

Obtain permission 

from data owners to 

add data to the 

NOAA archive and 

geodatabase

Post-archive quality 

control of Data for 

aggregation 

Quality control and 

archive original data 

and metadata in 

NOAA’s national 

data archive
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) 18

Microplastics water methods comparison

● Most variance in concentrations 

explained by sampling method

● Sampling the same place at the same 

time using different common 

methods yielded different 

concentrations by orders of 

magnitude 

Watkins L, Sullivan PJ, Walter MT. What you net depends 

on if you grab: A meta-analysis of sampling method's 

impact on measured aquatic microplastic concentration. 

Environmental Science & Technology, 55 (19): 12930–

12942 (2021).
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) 19

Data Quality Control for Microplastic

Data Archive

● All data submitted to NCEI is checked for 

consistency and data transfer 

correctness. Errors or questionable data 

are resolved with the data provider. 

○ Preferred data format is .CSV or 

NetCDF but will work with other 

formats

○ Data are archived and accessible in 

original form through each datasets 

accession link

Database and Map Portal

● Limited fields are accessed in the map 

portal 

● Data fields are harmonized for unified 

display

Sample 

Parameter Data Units

Date Numeric Day.Month.Year (e.g. 

25.01.2023 for January 25, 2023)

Location Latitude & Longitude in decimal 

degrees

Equipment e.g. grab bottle, neuston net, manta 

net, bongo net, or plankton net

Microplastic 

Concentration 

Value

Pieces of plastics / m3

Current Database & Map Portal Units
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) 20

Launched July 2021

Homepage:

• Background information 

• NOAA Policy & Approach

• Access to

○ Data submission information

○ Microplastic Data Archive

○ ArcGIS Map Viewer 

Updated August 2022

NCEI Marine Microplastics Website Overview

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/microplastics

Microplastics 

Homepage
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) 21

Legend

Microplastics 

Map Portal

NCEI Marine Microplastics Data Map Portal Overview
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) 22

Selection Tool

Selected records

Number of 

records 

Visible Features: 9,932

Number of records by 

Selection tool settings

Map Portal Overview: Selecting a Group of Records

Help Document
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) 23

Current Use of Database & Future Target Audience

★ Research Scientists

○ Example: AI Moonshot Challenge proposal - AI & MP sensing International 

collaboration - data for development of remote sensing capabilities

★ U.S. and International Students

○ Example: Data requests to support Ph.D. dissertation and Undergraduate 

thesis projects

★ U.S. State Environmental managers and Policy makers

○ Example: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality - data to support 

state microplastic water quality policy 

Plans to engage future target audiences: 

Fisheries managers, Tourism organizations, Media, General public
Thank You!

Questions?

Microplastics:

jennifer.webster@noaa.gov

Macroplastics:

hillary.burgess@noaa.gov

Microplastics Homepage MDMAP Homepage