River plastic emissions to the world’s oceans
Source: Nature Communications
Publish Date: June 7, 2017
Plastics in the marine environment have become a major concern because of their persistence at sea, and adverse consequences to marine life and potentially human health. Implementing mitigation strategies requires an understanding and quantification of marine plastic sources, taking spatial and temporal variability into account.
Here it is presented a global model of plastic inputs from rivers into oceans based on waste management, population density and hydrological information. The model is calibrated against measurements available in the literature. It is estimated that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste currently enters the ocean every year from rivers, with over 74% of emissions occurring between May and October.
The top 20 polluting rivers, mostly located in Asia, account for 67% of the global total. The findings of this study provide baseline data for ocean plastic mass balance exercises, and assist in prioritizing future plastic debris monitoring and mitigation strategies.
Lebreton, L., van der Zwet, J., Damsteeg, JW. et al. River plastic emissions to the world's oceans. Nat Commun 8, 15611 (2017).
Source Link: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15611