 |
| Titel |
Modeling the drift of plastics in the Adriatic Basin |
| VerfasserIn |
Svitlana Liubartseva, Giovanni Coppini, Rita Lecci, Sergio Creti |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2016
|
| Medientyp |
Artikel
|
| Sprache |
en
|
| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 18 (2016) |
| Datensatznummer |
250125260
|
| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2016-4819.pdf |
|
|
|
|
|
| Zusammenfassung |
| Recently, plastic pollution at sea has become widely recognized as an acute environmental
problem. Distribution of plastics in the marine environment is controlled by (1) locations and
time-varying intensity of inputs; (2) the dynamics of the upper mixed layer of the ocean,
where the majority of plastics float; and (3) the sinks of plastics.
In the present work, we calculate the plastic concentrations at the sea surface and fluxes
onto the coastline (2009-2015) that originated from terrestrial and maritime inputs. We
construct a Markov chain model based on coupling the MEDSLIK-II model (De
Dominicis et al., 2013) with the daily Adriatic Forecasting System (AFS) ocean currents
simulations (1/45˚ horizontal resolution) (Guarneri et al., 2010) and ECMWF surface
wind analyses (0.25˚ horizontal and 6-h temporal resolutions). We assume that
the coastline is the main sink of plastics in the Adriatic Sea (Liubartseva et al.,
2015).
Our calculations have shown that the mean particle half-life in the basin approximately
equals 43.7 days, which allows us to define the Adriatic Sea as a highly dissipative system
with respect to floating plastics.
On long-term time-mean scales, the most polluted sea surface area (more than 10
g/km2 floating plastics) is represented by an elongated band shifted to the Italian
coastline and narrowed from northwest to southeast. That corresponds to the spatial
distributions of plastic inputs, and indicates a tight connection with patterns of the
general Adriatic circulation, including the Western Adriatic Coastal Current and the
South Adriatic gyre. On seasonal time-mean scales, we indicate the winter plastics’
expansion into the basin’s interior, spring trapping in the northern Adriatic, summer
cleansing the middle and southern Adriatic and autumn spreading into the southeastern
Adriatic.
Distinctive coastal “hot spot” is found on the Po Delta coastline that receives a plastic flux
of 70 kg/(km⋅day).
Complex source-receptor relationships among the Adriatic subregions are quantified in
terms of impact matrices.
The results obtained can be used to monitor the floating debris, plan cleanups, and make
policy-relevant decisions. The methodology could be further improved by including
consideration of plastic particles sinking, breaking into microplastics, and being ingested by
biota. Furthermore, we believe that in the future, higher resolution current data will enhance
the Lagrangian representation of floating plastic transport.
This work has been supported by the DeFishGear (Derelict Fishing Gear Management
System in the Adriatic Region (http://www.defishgear.net/) IPA Adriatic strategic project 1˚
str/00010 implemented with co-funding by the European Union, Instrument for
Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA).
References
De Dominicis, M., Pinardi, N., Zodiatis, G., Lardner, R., 2013. MEDSLIK-II, a
Lagrangian marine surface oil spill model for short term forecasting – Part 1: Theory. Geosci.
Model Dev. 6, 1851–1869.
Guarnieri, A., Oddo, P., Pastore, M., Pinardi, N., 2010. The Adriatic Basin Forecasting
System new model and system development, in: Coastal to Global Operational
Oceanography: Achievements and Challenges, 184–190.
Liubartseva, S., Coppini, G., Lecci, R., Creti, S., Regional approach to modeling the
transport of floating plastic debris in the Adriatic Sea. Marine Pollution Bulletin (2015)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.12.031. |
|
|
|
|
|
|