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A Laboratory Study of the Effects of Size, Density, and Shape on the Wave‐Induced Transport of Floating Marine Litter
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Large-scale laboratory wave experiments demonstrated that wave-induced drift of floating marine litter depends significantly on particle size, density, and shape, with disc-shaped particles up to 13% of wavelength showing up to 95% greater drift than Stokes drift predictions. The findings suggest that conventional models assuming microplastic drift equals Stokes drift substantially underestimate transport of larger plastic debris objects in realistic wave conditions.
Abstract Floating marine litter is transported by several mechanisms, including surface waves. In studies of marine litter transport, the wave‐induced drift is set to be equal to the Stokes drift, corresponding to the Lagrangian‐mean wave‐induced drift of an infinitesimally small tracer. Large‐scale experiments are used to show how the wave‐induced drift of objects of finite size depends on their size, density, and shape. We observe increases in drift of 95% compared to Stokes drift for discs with diameters of 13% of the wavelength, up to 23% for spheres with diameters of 3% of the wavelength, whereas drift is reduced for objects that become submerged such as nets. We investigate what these findings may imply for the transport of plastic pollution in realistic wave conditions and we predict an increase in wave‐induced drift for (very) large plastic pollution objects. The different extrapolation techniques we explore to make this prediction exhibit a large range of uncertainty.
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