FLOAT

Plastic debris, ranging from large items to microscopic particles, known as microplastics, is a global environmental concern due to its widespread contamination of ecosystems and harm to both wildlife and human health. With sizes ranging from 1 μm to 1 mm, microplastics are particularly alarming as they can infiltrate even the most remote regions via atmospheric transport. This pervasive distribution poses challenges for environmental sustainability and ecosystem safety worldwide. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme, the FLOAT project will simulate the emission, atmospheric transport, and deposition of microplastics across Central Europe. By integrating direct measurements from passive sampling devices and lake water samples, FLOAT will quantify airborne microplastic contamination on land and lacustrine surfaces. Plastics contaminate the environment at global level and are a major concern for ecosystem safety and human health. In particular, plastics of smaller size called microplastics (1 μm < plastics < 1 mm; MPs) are considered a higher risk for organisms due to the combination of widespread distribution and toxicity. Indeed, MPs can contaminate every ecosystem, even remote regions on the globe, for which the atmospheric transport plays a pivotal role. The aim of this project FLOAT is creating a model to simulate MP emissions in the atmosphere, their dispersal, and deposition for assessing the contamination of terrestrial and water surfaces by airborne MPs at local scale and large scale, i.e. Central Europe. Specific objectives are: 1) to generate simulations of MP emissions from densely populated areas, their atmospheric transport and deposition to remote regions in Central Europe; 2) to quantify the contribution of the deposition from the atmosphere on MP concentrations in land and lacustrine surface water by direct measurements; 3) to validate the model by the measurements, then use the tuned model to “upscale” the measurement outputs from the local scale to Central Europe. The FLEXPART model will be used for simulations. Direct data on airborne MP deposition will be measured by stationary passive sampling devices and lake water surface sampling. Microplastic contamination will be characterized in terms of polymer type, shape, size, mass, colour and abundance. By the end of the project, FLOAT will provide a tuned model for the dispersal of airborne MPs at large scale, which will be used quantify the deposition of airborne MPs on lakes in Central Europe.