Plastic pollution in rivers, lakes, estuaries, and seas is a growing threat for ecosystem health and human livelihood. Reliable data and fundamental understanding of plastic quantities, types, and transport mechanisms are crucial to optimize prevention and reduction strategies.

In our group we work on macroplastics (Tim van Emmerik) and microplastics (Kryss Waldschläger). The work related to macroplastics focusses on:

• Development of field techniques to consistently quantify plastic in and around rivers;
• Fundamental research on driving mechanisms of plastic mobilization, transport, and retention;
• Exploring the use of space-borne and close-range remote sensing for (automated) plastic monitoring;
• Investigating the role of extreme events, including floods, on plastic transport;
• Model development to estimate global river plastic transport and emissions into the ocean;
• Capacity building among governments, practitioners, academics, and other stakeholders on plastic monitoring methods and strategies;

We focus our research on microplastics as they are known to be ubiquitous contaminants and although our knowledge about them is constantly increasing, we know little about the processes that guide their dispersal in the aquatic environment. Often, theoretical principles from natural sediment transport are used to describe microplastics transport, but do they provide sufficiently accurate results for this new "artificial sediment"? At the HWM group, we aim to answer this question and to further improve our understanding of microplastic transport by combining physical model experiments in the Kraijenhoff van de Leur Laboratory for Water and Sediment Dynamics with environmental sampling and hydronumerical modelling. The fundamental transport processes of microplastics are hereby important basics to better understand the distribution and accumulation of microplastics in the environment and ultimately to take measures to reduce environmental pollution with plastics. At the moment, we have three major projects on microplastic transport (impact of turbulence, impact of biofouling, impact of aggregation) and one project that is bridging the gap between micro- and macroplastics.

Project areas

• Rhine and Meuse rivers, the Netherlands;
• Saigon, Mekong and Red rivers, Vietnam;
• Odaw river, Ghana;
• Indonesia;
• Switzerland;
• Amsterdam, the Netherlands;

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Key publications

• Waldschläger et al. (2022). Learning from natural sediments to tackle microplastics challenges: A multidisciplinary perspective. Earth-Science Reviews, 228, 104021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2022.104021
• van Emmerik T, Schwarz A. Plastic debris in rivers. WIREs Water. 2020; 7:e1398. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1398
• Van Emmerik et al. (2022). Rivers as Plastic Reservoirs. Frontiers in Water. https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2021.786936
• Cowger et al. (2021). Concentration Depth Profiles of Microplastic Particles in River Flow and Implications for Surface Sampling. Environmental Science & Technology 2021 55 (9), 6032-6041 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.1c01768
• Role of floods on plastic mobilization | Plastic in global rivers: are floods making it worse? - IOPscience
• Waldschläger et al. (2020). The way of microplastic through the environment – Application of the source-pathway-receptor model (review). Science of The Total Environment, 713, 136584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.136584
• Global river plastic emissions into the ocean | More than 1000 rivers account for 80% of global riverine plastic emissions into the ocean (science.org)
• Towards remote sensing of river plastic pollution | Remote Sensing | Free Full-Text | Advancing Floating Macroplastic Detection from Space Using Experimental Hyperspectral Imagery (mdpi.com)