1. Riverine and Marine Litter
RIMMEL project
Georg Hanke, Daniel Gonzalez,
JRC D2
WD + MD meeting, Tallinn, Estonia

2. How does litter enter the marine environment?
Coastal shoreline input (including wind-blown)
Discharge/loss at sea
Input from inland through rivers, streams and ditches

3. European Rivers as sources of litter

4. European Rivers as sources of litter
ca rivers (catchment area >100 km2)
and more smaller rivers, streams
Almost no data on floating macro litter input to the seas is available!

5. RIMMEL - JRC exploratory project id 2750 RIverine and Marine floating macro litter Monitoring and Modelling of Environmental Loading
Close collaboration with MSFD Technical Group on Marine Litter
Providing overview on options for riverine litter monitoring
Development and testing of approaches for monitoring of riverine macro litter
Link:

6. Options for riverine litter monitoring
Collection
Booms, nets, traps (deployment requires major effort)
Existing structures (data are not comparable)
River shoreline (depends on morphology, interpretation is challenging)
Observation
Visual observation (requires observer availability)
Camera observation (under development)

7. Observation methodology compromise
RIMMEL
Observation methodology compromise
Surface floating litter as proxy for litter flux
Observation from bridges close to sea
Lower observation size range limit 2.5 cm
Note:
River morphology and flow state can cause turbulences, vertical mixing, subsurface litter cannot be seen
Tidal estuaries provide challenges
Integrating methods account for variability
Deployment of nets/booms is costly/difficult

8. Observation network

9. Observation network
A network of 36 Scientific Institutions, Authorities and NGOs observing 54 rivers
Community linked through on-line communication platform for discussions and feedback

10. Requested/recommended ca. bi-weekly monitoring of 0.5-1 hour duration
JRC Floating Litter Monitoring Tablet Computer Application
Requested/recommended ca. bi-weekly monitoring of hour duration
Toward a Harmonized Approach for Monitoring of Riverine Floating Macro Litter Inputs to the Marine Environment
ars /full

11. Variability – all rivers Items/hours

12. Variability – all rivers Items/hours
35 rivers with good temporal coverage
797 valid datasets across Europe
443 hours of observation

13. Extrapolated to river width ~ x 2
Extrapolations
Average across all observations: 19.8 items/h
Observed
Extrapolated to river width ~ x 2
items/hour
19.8
~ 42.1
items/day
~ 476
~ 1011
items/year ~ ~

14. Average for all rivers - Items/hour

15. Main rivers - Variability and averages

16. Main rivers - Variability and averages
Variability (temporal) in rivers SD

17. Temporal variability

18. Temporal variability – total items
High peak concentrations
No seasonal pattern observed
Background concentration with peaks

19. Riverine Top Items Top 20 are 97% of all items
Identifiable plastic objects:
(MSFD Litter Category Master List)
Bottles
Packaging
Bags
Plastic containers
Rope
82 % Plastic

20. Fragments in rivers Sum of fragments 47 % Fragments 53 % Objects
Plastic pieces > 50cm
Plastic pieces 2.5cm - 50cm
Polystyrene pieces > 50 cm
Polystyrene pieces 2.5 cm - 50cm
47 %
Fragments
53 %
Objects

21. Fragments in rivers Fragmentation occurrs
Sum of fragments
Plastic pieces > 50cm
Plastic pieces 2.5cm - 50cm
Polystyrene pieces > 50 cm
Polystyrene pieces 2.5 cm - 50cm
47 %
Fragments
53 %
Objects
Fragmentation occurrs
in river systems (formation of meso-
+ microplastic)

22. Littercam (under development)
Camera
system
Data system
Off-line image recognition analysis
Automated long term autonomous monitoring camera system with image recognition

23. Recommendations
Facilitate information exchange on approaches at EU level, including local and national projects
Use and expand existing networks
Combine observation and collection methods with modelling approaches
Provide guidance for monitoring and related measures in river basins at EU scale
Start EU-wide identification of input hotspots
Provide a policy frame for monitoring and assessments, linked to measures
Link Freshwater and Marine Assessments