Reducing the discharge of microplastics into source waters - source tracking and identifying targeted mitigation measures

This project aims at gaining knowledge that will enable more targeted measures to decrease the release of microplastics to the aquatic environment from land based sources, focusing on stormwater and wastewater.

The study involves a broad series of field measurements sampling and analyzing microplastics in an urban stormwater catchment, and along a freshwater catchment, that will allow studying links between concentrations and land based sources.

Studies on fresh water environments are still scarce, which is notable given the importance of riverine environments as transportation vectors for microplastics to larger waterbodies such as lakes and oceans.

Since inherent variation in natural conditions result in large temporal and spatial differences in the abundance and distribution of microplastics we aim to study spatial and temporal variations in concentrations in relation to water chemistry variables that are indicative of different sources.

The objective is to understand the variation in fresh water systems by determining temporal variations of concentrations of microplastics due to changes in chemical and hydrological factors.

The outcome of this project will provide valuable input for implementation of policy and management of microplastics and help focus society’s resources on the activities that have the greatest mitigating impact on microplastic pollution.