Author(s): Mirco Mancini; Daniele Martuscelli; Lorenzo Innocenti; Simona Francalanci; Maurizio Becucci; Luca Solari
Linked Author(s): Luca Solari, Simona Francalanci
Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: The need of studying how plastics affect water ecosystems, such as rivers, lakes, and oceans, has been emerged in last years. Despite this, there is a lack of knowledge, mainly due to the poor data availability, which does not allow to understand the dynamics and the accumulation of plastic waste in rivers. Recent studies observed that only a small fraction (≈ 3%) of the total plastic waste generated within the river basin is discharged into the ocean, so the large part of the plastic waste remains entrapped within the river system. Once plastics entered the river corridors, their dynamics is strongly affected by the flow regime and by the channel boundaries, e. g. the river morphology or the presence of in-channel structures. In this work, the focus is on the analysis of micro- and macro-plastics (5 mm, respectively) trapped into river sediment. The major aim of the study is the investigation of plastics accumulated in river sediments along the Arno River (Italy). The sampling campaign was designed to study the influence of the flow regime on the plastic distribution.
Year: 2022