Physical transport properties of marine microplastic pollution

Abstract

Given the complexity of quantitative collection, knowledge of the distribution of mi-croplastic pollution in many regions of the world ocean is patchy, both spatially and temporally, especially for the subsurface environment. However, with knowledge of typical hydrodynamic behavior of waste plastic material, models predicting the dispersal 5 of pelagic and benthic plastics from land sources into the ocean are possible. Here we investigate three aspects of plastic distribution and transport in European waters. Firstly, we assess patterns in the distribution of plastics found in fluvial strandlines of the North Sea and how distribution may be related to flow velocities and distance from source. Second, we model transport of non-buoyant preproduction pellets in the 10