The Marine Debris Action Planner (MDAP) is a project funded by Innovation Norway in which GRID-Arendal and SALT – an independent consultancy – are developing a geographic model that predicts where litter accumulates on coastlines in Norway. The project will help us better understand how geographic variables such as the slope, curvature of the coastline, wind direction and human maritime and land-based activities, among others, are driving the accumulation of litter.

In this project, GRID-Arendal provides strategic GIS and marine litter expertise. This “plastics predictive model” will be produced for the Lofoten archipelago, the Agder region, and parts of Finnmark. GRID-Arendal will also build an online interactive map to share information with stakeholders on marine litter accumulation in selected regions. MDAP will enable volunteer and professional cleanup crews to efficiently remove litter from our coasts. Our model will be easy to use because it relies on freely available data and will not require large data capacity, meaning it can easily be produced for other coastlines around the world.

During the project, we will publish scientific papers on the plastics predictive model as well as news stories to update our partners on progress.