Sargassum algal blooms on ocean surfaces and landings of huge Sargassum mats on beaches is an emerging global environmental challenge with wide socio-economic and environmental implications. Literature on Sargassum growth cycles, travel patterns, species and morphotypes, and quantified impacts have tended to focus on a geographic region, or a specific event. Few, if any, publications document long term continuous monitoring of Sargassum blooms in large areas such as the Pacific, or the tropical Atlantic. To address this gap, this paper systematically reviews the global evidence of Sargassum bloom monitoring beyond the Sargasso Sea, and identifies gaps in the evidence base of floating and landing influxes. This systematic review uses combinations of two key terms relating to Sargassum and monitoring, and utilises the resources in ISI Web of Knowledge, Scopus and Google Scholar. The analysis moves us past a classic literature review, and produces an unbiased assessment of empirical research on Sargassum monitoring from 1960 to 2019. We find a significant research focus on open-ocean blooms and floating mats whereas research on beach landings and their associated impacts is comparatively limited. Research is focused within specific countries or water bodies (notably, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean and North Atlantic Ocean) and tends not to comprehensively assess neighbouring or regional shorelines, for example, West Africa and Central America. There was a lack of consistency in the application of methods for quantifying Sargassum biomass volume (including dry/wet weight, unit of measurement, and spatial extent of calculations). Further, in many publications Sargassum species identification was omitted. Given current attempts to understand the drivers and impacts of the exponential growth in Sargassum in some parts of the world, a consistent and replicable research approach to monitoring Sargassum could support creation of a Sargassum evidence database. To move this agenda forwards, we propose a definition for a Sargassum ‘event’: a continuous bloom of any Sargassum in open oceans, or, an aggregation of landed Sargassum, with the potential to disrupt social, economic or ecosystem functioning, or to impact human health. This review highlights the importance of standardising Sargassum monitoring methods to facilitate improved documentation of temporal and spatial patterns of Sargassum blooms and beach landings.

海面上的海藻藻华和巨大的马尾藻垫降落在海滩上是一个新兴的全球环境挑战，具有广泛的社会经济和环境影响。关于马尾藻生长周期、旅行模式、物种和形态类型以及量化影响的文献往往侧重于地理区域或特定事件。很少（如果有的话）出版物记录了对太平洋或热带大西洋等大面积马尾藻水华的长期连续监测。为了弥补这一差距，本文系统地回顾了马尾藻的全球证据马尾藻海以外的水华监测，并确定漂浮和着陆流入的证据基础中的差距。本系统评价结合使用与马尾藻和监测相关的两个关键术语，并利用 ISI Web of Knowledge、Scopus 和 Google Scholar 中的资源。该分析使我们超越了经典的文献综述，并对马尾藻的实证研究进行了公正的评估从 1960 年到 2019 年的监测。我们发现重要的研究重点是公海藻华和漂浮垫，而对海滩登陆及其相关影响的研究相对有限。研究集中在特定国家或水体（特别是墨西哥湾、加勒比海和北大西洋）内，往往不会全面评估邻近或区域海岸线，例如西非和中美洲。马尾藻生物量定量方法的应用缺乏一致性（包括干/湿重、测量单位和计算的空间范围）。此外，在许多出版物中，马尾藻物种鉴定被省略。鉴于目前试图了解世界某些地区马尾藻指数增长的驱动因素和影响，一致且可复制的监测马尾藻的研究方法可以支持马尾藻证据数据库的创建。为了推进这一议程，我们提出了马尾藻“事件”的定义：任何马尾藻在公海中的持续盛开，或陆上马尾藻的聚集，有可能破坏社会、经济或生态系统功能，或影响人类健康。这篇评论强调了标准化马尾藻的重要性监测方法，以促进对马尾藻水华和海滩登陆的时间和空间模式的改进记录。