Assessing Transport of Microplastics in the Ergene River

Abstract

Extended Abstract Microplastic pollution has become a global concern, particularly in the last decade due to their rapid increase in the environment. Rivers are the major transport pathways of microplastics to reach the marine environment. Understanding how microplastics are distributed horizontally and vertically in rivers is a requirement to assessing the risks associated with microplastic abundance. This study aims to investigate the effect of flow characteristics on the transport of microplastics and identify transport of these particles mechanistically between a tributary and main stream of the Ergene River, Turkey using mass-balance and hydrodynamic equations. For this purpose, Corlu tributary of the Ergene River was chosen as the study area. River samples were collected from the six stations of the Ergene River including Corlu tributary and upstream and downstream of the outfall of this tributary in September 2020. Fifteen litres of water sample were collected from the water surface of each sampling station using stainless-steel buckets and transferred to glass bottles. Additionally, the parameters including flow rate (m s -1 ) and stream depth (m) of the river were measured using Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler instrument. After removing organic matter, the collected water samples were filtered onto a plankton mesh with 45 µm pore size. Microplastic particles were visually identified under stereo-microscope (Olympus SZX 16, 30x) and transferred to a clean cellulose filter paper, previously checked for airborne contamination. Microplastic particles were photographed and counted by the help of ImageJ software.