Programme: MIUR JPI OCEANS
Project title: Fluxes and Fate of (Small) Microplastics in Northern European Waters
Acronym: FACTS – MIUR JPI OCEANS
Duration: 01/01/2020 – 31/12/2022
Total budget: € 2.000.000
ISMAR budget: € 144.150
Web site: n.a.
Summary:
FACTS will create new knowledge and improve our mechanistic understanding on the sources, transport, occurrence, and fate of small microplastics in the northern marine waters. FACTS will combine state-of-the-art analytical, monitoring and modelling approaches in feedback cycles to describe transport and geographical sources of microplastics contamination as well as sinks from the temperate waters of the southern North Sea to the Arctic waters of the Barents Sea. It analyses the distribution of MP in the water column and quantifies Skagerrak as a major sink zone. Investigated transport processes range from drift scenarios to air transport to aggregation and sinking processes. FACTS also zooms in on the geographic scale to study microplastic transport and fate in a semi enclosed fjord system. The goal is to address the question of how MP move vertically in the water column with time under comparatively well-defined hydrodynamic conditions. FACTS is structured around a set of sampling campaigns reaching from the German Bight to Svalbard, where samples are collected from large research vessels, smaller research vessels, fishery vessels and land based boats. Plastic particle concentrations, obtained from the proposed sampling campaigns are implemented into oceanographic models. The modelling approach is used to integrate release and transport scenarios, and the likelihood and timescale for particle pathways is estimated based on sinking, defragmentation, and beach ingrates, obtained from observations.
Contact person in ISMAR: stefano.aliani@sp.ismar.cnr.it
Partnership:
- Aalborg Universitet (Denmark)
- Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar und Meeresforshung (Germany)
- Norwegian Institute for Air Research (Norway)
- Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg (Germany)
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche- Istituto di Scienze Marine (Italy)
- Havforskningsinstituttet (Norway)
- Norwegian Research Centre AS (Norway)
- GEOMAR Helmholtz Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel (Germany)
- Göteborgs Universitet (Sweden)
- Technische Universität Berlin (Germany)
- 5750 Imhoff Drive (USA)
- Universitetet i Bergen (Norway)
- Continental Reifen Deutschland GmbH (Germany)
- Ocean Scientific International LTD (United Kingdom)
- Heriot-Watt University (United Kingdom)