On the Fate of Floating Marine Debris Carried to the Sea through the Main Rivers of Indonesia

Abstract

Plastic debris has become an acute marine pollution concern worldwide in modern times. Indonesia is particularly impacted because of its high population density, heavy rainfall rate and numerous coastlines. A Lagrangian analysis was performed to simulate the fate of fictive marine debris drifting along surface currents, including tides and Stokes drift. The fictive particles were released according to the discharge rate of 21 Indonesian rivers and advected over 4 years. Most of the particles were stranded along Indonesian coasts (60%), before 6 months had elapsed (84%) and within a range of 1000 km (76%). The time variability exhibited two seasonal peaks, one centered on January-February and one on June-July, consistent with in situ observations. However, the results underline the complexity of performing direct comparisons between in situ observations and numerical simulations for stranded waste due to limited measurements and the heterogeneity of field methods and protocols.