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Transfer dynamic of macroplastics in estuaries – Short term dynamic based on GPS-trackers
Summary
This data repository contains GPS tracking data from plastic bottles released in an estuary to study short-term macroplastic transport dynamics. The data supports a companion publication on how tidal cycles and wind affect plastic movement from rivers to the sea.
Plastic transport from land to sea may be non-linear with a great influence of tides and wind, in particular downstream. We thus performed tracking of plastic waste using GPS-trackers sealed into floating plastic bottles. Those data are discussed in the following paper: "Transfer dynamic of macroplastics in estuaries – New insights from the Seine estuary: Part 2. Short term dynamic based on GPS-trackers" in Marine Pollution Bulletin. This dataset gathers .csv files each coresponding to a trajectory recorded in the Seine river. Each file name is set as follows: dd_mm_yy_Macroplast_ENPC_GPS IMEI-City. The date and the city are the time and the location of release. ENPC for Ecole National des Ponts et Chaussées (one of the partner institution, with UPEC). Half-submerged and floating bottles were used in pairs to identify changes in trajectories related to windage. To rely each bottle, i.e. each .csv file, to its respective buoyancy, please refer to the research paper. Data show that 100% plastic debris strand somewhere along their way to the Sea. But, they are frequently remobilized, espacially by tides in the estuary. They can be transported upstream and deposited again. Those processes may greatly delay the transfer of plastics from land to Sea. Increasing the residence time of plastics in rivers may also increase the probability of fragementation into microplastics. Since the probability of stranding is 100% and the time spent stranded up to three times higher than the time spent in water, cleaning riverbanks constitutes the best curative solution to tackle the marine pollution accordingly. Because cleaning rivers from macroplastics with prevention policies and curative actions is far easier than cleaning the open ocean from the resulting microplastics. Data might also be used to constrain modelisation on plastic transport to take into account the stranding/remobilization processes and then better constrain global estimation of plastic input into the Ocean.