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Mountains of plastic: Mismanaged plastic waste along the Carpathian watercourses
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Using high-resolution mapping data, researchers quantified mismanaged plastic waste along river networks in the Carpathian mountains, one of Europe's most biodiverse regions. The results reveal that rivers carry substantial plastic waste through mountain ecosystems where it can harm wildlife and persist for years.
Plastic waste poses numerous risks to mountain river ecosystems due to their high biodiversity and specific physical characteristics. Here, we provide a baseline assessment for future evaluation of such risks in the Carpathians, one of the most biodiverse mountain ranges in East-Central Europe. We used high-resolution river network and mismanaged plastic waste (MPW) databases to map MPW along the 175,675 km of watercourses draining this ecoregion. We explored MPW levels as a function of altitude, stream order, river basin, country, and type of nature conservation in a given area. The Carpathian watercourses below 750 m a.s.l. (142,282 km, 81 % of the stream lengths) are identified as significantly affected by MPW. Most MPW hotspots (>409.7 t/yr/km2) occur along rivers in Romania (6568 km; 56.6 % of all hotspot lengths), Hungary (2679 km; 23.1 %), and Ukraine (1914 km; 16.5 %). The majority of the river sections flowing through the areas with negligible MPW (< 1 t/yr/km2) occur in Romania (31,855 km; 47.8 %), Slovakia (14,577 km; 21.9 %), and Ukraine (7492; 11.2 %). The Carpathian watercourses flowing through the areas protected at national level (3988 km; 2.3 % of all watercourses studied) have significantly higher MPW values (median = 7.7 t/yr/km2) than those protected at regional (51,800 km; 29.5 %) (median MPW = 1.25 t/yrkm2) and international levels (66 km; 0.04 %) (median MPW = 0 t/yr/km2). Rivers within the Black Sea basin (88.3 % of all studied watercourses) have significantly higher MPW (median = 5.1 t/yr/km2, 90th percentile = 381.1 t/yr/km2) than those within the Baltic Sea basin (median = 6.5 t/yr/km2, 90th percentile = 84.8 t/yr/km2) (11.1 % of all studied watercourses). Our study indicates the locations and extent of riverine MPW hotspots in the Carpathian Ecoregion, which can support future collaborations between scientists, engineers, governments, and citizens to better manage plastic pollution in this region.
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Mountains of plastic: Mismanaged plastic waste along the Carpathian watercourses
AI summary Read the abstract
Researchers mapped mismanaged plastic waste along 175,675 km of Carpathian waterways using high-resolution databases, finding that 81% of river lengths are significantly affected, with the worst hotspots concentrated in Romania, Hungary, and Ukraine, and that nationally protected areas paradoxically have higher plastic waste loads than internationally protected zones.
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Researchers mapped macroplastic pollution hotspots across global mountain river catchments, identifying densely populated mountain areas as significant sources of plastic that enters high-energy river channels where rapid fragmentation into microplastics can occur. The study emphasised that mountain rivers represent underappreciated pathways for microplastic generation and downstream transport to lowland rivers and ultimately the ocean.
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This study estimates the quantity of plastic bottles entering the Izvoru Muntelui reservoir — the largest mountain lake in the Eastern Carpathians — from upstream rural communities lacking formal waste collection, using field surveys and modelling. The results highlight how inadequate waste management in mountain communities contributes to plastic pollution in remote freshwater bodies.
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