TY - JOUR
T1 - The physical oceanography of the transport of floating marine debris
AU - Van Sebille, Erik
AU - Aliani, Stefano
AU - Law, Kara Lavender
AU - Maximenko, Nikolai
AU - Alsina, José M.
AU - Bagaev, Andrei
AU - Bergmann, Melanie
AU - Chapron, Bertrand
AU - Chubarenko, Irina
AU - Cózar, Andrés
AU - Delandmeter, Philippe
AU - Egger, Matthias
AU - Fox-Kemper, Baylor
AU - Garaba, Shungudzemwoyo P.
AU - Goddijn-Murphy, Lonneke
AU - Hardesty, Britta Denise
AU - Hoffman, Matthew J.
AU - Isobe, Atsuhiko
AU - Jongedijk, Cleo E.
AU - Kaandorp, Mikael L.A.
AU - Khatmullina, Liliya
AU - Koelmans, Albert A.
AU - Kukulka, Tobias
AU - Laufkötter, Charlotte
AU - Lebreton, Laurent
AU - Lobelle, Delphine
AU - Maes, Christophe
AU - Martinez-Vicente, Victor
AU - Morales Maqueda, Miguel Angel
AU - Poulain-Zarcos, Marie
AU - Rodríguez, Ernesto
AU - Ryan, Peter G.
AU - Shanks, Alan L.
AU - Shim, Won Joon
AU - Suaria, Giuseppe
AU - Thiel, Martin
AU - Van Den Bremer, Ton S.
AU - Wichmann, David
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/2/17
Y1 - 2020/2/17
N2 - Marine plastic debris floating on the ocean surface is a major environmental problem. However, its distribution in the ocean is poorly mapped, and most of the plastic waste estimated to have entered the ocean from land is unaccounted for. Better understanding of how plastic debris is transported from coastal and marine sources is crucial to quantify and close the global inventory of marine plastics, which in turn represents critical information for mitigation or policy strategies. At the same time, plastic is a unique tracer that provides an opportunity to learn more about the physics and dynamics of our ocean across multiple scales, from the Ekman convergence in basin-scale gyres to individual waves in the surfzone. In this review, we comprehensively discuss what is known about the different processes that govern the transport of floating marine plastic debris in both the open ocean and the coastal zones, based on the published literature and referring to insights from neighbouring fields such as oil spill dispersion, marine safety recovery, plankton connectivity, and others. We discuss how measurements of marine plastics (both in situ and in the laboratory), remote sensing, and numerical simulations can elucidate these processes and their interactions across spatio-temporal scales.
AB - Marine plastic debris floating on the ocean surface is a major environmental problem. However, its distribution in the ocean is poorly mapped, and most of the plastic waste estimated to have entered the ocean from land is unaccounted for. Better understanding of how plastic debris is transported from coastal and marine sources is crucial to quantify and close the global inventory of marine plastics, which in turn represents critical information for mitigation or policy strategies. At the same time, plastic is a unique tracer that provides an opportunity to learn more about the physics and dynamics of our ocean across multiple scales, from the Ekman convergence in basin-scale gyres to individual waves in the surfzone. In this review, we comprehensively discuss what is known about the different processes that govern the transport of floating marine plastic debris in both the open ocean and the coastal zones, based on the published literature and referring to insights from neighbouring fields such as oil spill dispersion, marine safety recovery, plankton connectivity, and others. We discuss how measurements of marine plastics (both in situ and in the laboratory), remote sensing, and numerical simulations can elucidate these processes and their interactions across spatio-temporal scales.
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U2 - 10.1088/1748-9326/ab6d7d
DO - 10.1088/1748-9326/ab6d7d
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85080144846
VL - 15
JO - Environmental Research Letters
JF - Environmental Research Letters
SN - 1748-9326
IS - 2
M1 - 023003
ER -