Baltic Sea Monitoring on Microplastic sedimentation processes

Microplastics are recognized as a risk for environment and health, however current understanding on processes controlling the faith of plastic particles in aquatic environments are poorly understood as is the flux rate of these pollutants to the natural waters. Microplastics are reported from sediments of coastal regions to the remote deep basins of the ocean, however, so far no flux rates with respect of time is reported. This project will increase our knowledge on spatially and temporally varying flux rates in coastal estuarine zones. As the deposition of any material transported to aquatic environment is controlled by the seasonal changes, climate, hydrology, catchment and anthropogenic actions, the same processes are expected to control microplastics entering to natural waters. However, as a heterogenic group of different physical and chemical characteristics the processes controlling the faith of each synthetic polymer type must be investigated and understood individually.