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Plastic Pollution in an Arctic River: A Three-Year Study of Abundance, Mass, and Flux from the Northern Dvina to the White Sea
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Researchers conducted a three-year survey of floating microplastics and macroplastics in the Northern Dvina River using Neuston net sampling, finding low microplastic concentrations with no seasonal flux variability but notable contributions of meso/macroplastics — and identified the Dvina as a leading Arctic river source based on socioeconomic proximity indicators.
Rivers are a key pathway for the transport of plastics into the ocean. Studies of plastic pollution in Arctic rivers remain limited due to the inaccessibility of sampling sites and work in extreme weather conditions. This work presents the results of a three-year (2019–2021) survey of floating large microplastics (0.5–5 mm) and meso/macroplastics (>5 mm) in the Northern Dvina River, an actively navigated river that drains a densely populated region into the White Sea. Sampling was conducted during the ice-free periods (May–October) along a ∼3.5 km transect using a Neuston net, providing a multi-year dataset spanning three ice-free seasons. A critical methodological advancement was the calculation of plastic river–sea flux using the discharge of the sampled surface layer (upper 20 cm), which constitutes only ∼3% of the river’s total discharge, rather than the total discharge itself. Observed microplastic concentrations (average 0.003 items m−3) were low compared to many European rivers, and lower than those reported in the adjacent Barents and Kara Seas. Microplastic abundance was significantly lower during the high-water season than during the low-water season, which resulted in practically no seasonal variability in microplastic fluxes from the river to the White Sea (average 0.3 items s−1). A notable finding was that in some cases, meso/macroplastics outnumbered microplastics by item count, underscoring the river’s role as a significant source of larger plastic debris. A geospatial assessment of Arctic rivers’ pollution potential was performed, using socio-economic indicators such as near-delta population density and port activity. This study identified the Northern Dvina River as a major contributor of microplastics among the Arctic rivers.
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Researchers monitored floating plastics at the mouth of the Northern Dvina River in Russia over three open-water seasons, finding that polyethylene was the dominant plastic type and that concentrations varied seasonally and between years. Rivers like the Northern Dvina act as conveyor belts delivering microplastics from industrial and urban inland areas to the Arctic seas.
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