The key role of surface tension in the transport and quantification of plastic pollution in rivers
File(s)
Published version
OA Location
Author(s)
Valero, Daniel
Belay, Biruk S
Moreno-Rodenas, Antonio
Kramer, Matthias
Franca, Mario J
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Current riverine plastic monitoring best practices mainly consider surface observations, thus neglecting the underlying distribution of plastics in the water column. Bias on plastic budgets estimations hinders advances on modelling and prediction of plastics fate. Here, we experimentally disclose the structure of plastics transport in surface water flows by investigating how thousands of samples of plastics commonly found in fluvial environments travel in turbulent river flows. We show for the first time that surface tension plays a key role in the transport of plastics since its effects can be of the same magnitude as buoyancy and turbulence, therefore holding a part of the dispersed buoyant plastics captive by the water surface. We investigate two types of transport; surfaced plastics (surface tension-turbulence-buoyancy dominated), in contact with the free surface, and suspended plastics (turbulence-buoyancy dominated). We prove that this duality in transport modes is a major source of error in the estimation of plastic budgets, which can be underestimated by 90 % following current, well-established monitoring protocols if sampling is conducted solely in the water surface. Based on our empirical findings, we optimize physics-driven monitoring strategies for plastic fluxes in rivers, thereby achieving over a ten-fold reduction of the bias and uncertainty of riverine plastic pollution estimates.
Date Issued
2022-11-01
Date Acceptance
2022-09-07
Citation
Water Research, 2022, 226
ISSN
0043-1354
Publisher
Elsevier
Journal / Book Title
Water Research
Volume
226
Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/).
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36323198
PII: S0043-1354(22)01024-7
Subjects
DEBRIS
Engineering
Engineering, Environmental
Environmental Sciences
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
FLOW
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Macroplastic
MARINE-ENVIRONMENT
MICROPLASTICS
Physical Sciences
Plastic concentration
Plastic transport
Science & Technology
Surface transport
Surfaced plastic
Suspended transport
Technology
Water Resources
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
119078
Date Publish Online
2022-10-28