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More than 1000 rivers account for 80% of global riverine plastic emissions into the ocean
Summary
Researchers developed a model to estimate global riverine plastic emissions into the ocean and found that more than 1,000 rivers account for 80% of emissions, rather than just a handful of large rivers as previously assumed. The study suggests that plastic pollution is geographically distributed across many smaller river systems worldwide, which has important implications for developing targeted mitigation strategies.
Plastic waste increasingly accumulates in the marine environment, but data on the distribution and quantification of riverine sources required for development of effective mitigation are limited. Our model approach includes geographically distributed data on plastic waste, land use, wind, precipitation, and rivers and calculates the probability for plastic waste to reach a river and subsequently the ocean. This probabilistic approach highlights regions that are likely to emit plastic into the ocean. We calibrated our model using recent field observations and show that emissions are distributed over more rivers than previously thought by up to two orders of magnitude. We estimate that more than 1000 rivers account for 80% of global annual emissions, which range between 0.8 million and 2.7 million metric tons per year, with small urban rivers among the most polluting. These high-resolution data allow for the focused development of mitigation strategies and technologies to reduce riverine plastic emissions.