Marine litter poses growing risks to the Arabian Gulf’s major turtle nesting islands, yet its composition and fine-scale distribution have never been quantified. We combined two complementary surveys on Jana and Karan Islands—the region’s largest hawksbill ( Eretmochelys imbricata ) and green turtle ( Chelonia mydas ) rookeries. First, 988.3 m 2 of 0.75 m × 0.75 m photo-quadrats (June 2017) recorded litter cover and item count...

Marine plastic pollution poses a critical threat to coastal ecosystems. However, its effective assessment remains limited by the availability of consistent, scalable metrics. The Clean Coast Index (CCI) has been widely applied to quantify the absolute density of coastal litter. However, using only CCI does not account for context-specific coastal anomalies that may warrant targeted management. This paper introduces a novel bia...