River plastic emissions to the world's oceans

Plastics in the marine environment have become a major concern because of their persistence at sea, and adverse consequences to marine life and potentially human health. Implementing mitigation strategies requires an understanding and quantification of marine plastic sources, taking spatial and temporal variability into account. Here we present a global model of plastic inputs from rivers into oceans based on waste management, population density and hydrological information. Our model is calibrated against measurements available in the literature. We estimate that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste currently enters the ocean every year from rivers, with over 74% of emissions occurring between May and October. The top 20 polluting rivers, mostly located in Asia, account for 67% of the global total. The findings of this study provide baseline data for ocean plastic mass balance exercises, and assist in prioritizing future plastic debris monitoring and mitigation strategies.Modelled plastic inputs into the ocean from rivers worldwide.The shapefile contains 40,760 river input locations (EPSG:4326, WGS 84) with the following attributes:i_level: plastic input in tonnes per year. (level=low, mid or high for lower, midpoint and upper estimates)i_level_month: plastic input in tonnes per month. (level=low,mid,high; month=jan,feb,...,dec)runoff_month: monthly averaged runoff in catchment in mm per day. (month=jan,feb,...,dec)mpw: mismanaged plastic waste production in catchment in tonnes per year. area: catchment area in square kilometers.

搜集汇总

背景与挑战

背景概述

该数据集提供了一个全球模型，用于估计河流向海洋排放的塑料废物量，基于废物管理、人口密度和水文数据。它估计每年有1.15至2.41百万吨塑料从河流进入海洋，其中排放高峰在5月至10月，且亚洲河流占主导地位。数据集包含40,760个河流输入点的详细属性，如塑料输入量、径流和流域面积，旨在为海洋塑料质量平衡研究和缓解策略提供基线数据。