Mountains of plastic: Mismanaged plastic waste along the Carpathian watercourses

Maciej Liro; Anna Zielonka; Tim H M van Emmerik; Małgorzata Grodzińska-Jurczak; Justyna Liro; Tímea Kiss; Florin-Constantin Mihai

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164058

Mountains of plastic: Mismanaged plastic waste along the Carpathian watercourses

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Aug 25:888:164058. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164058. Epub 2023 May 12.

Authors

Maciej Liro¹, Anna Zielonka², Tim H M van Emmerik³, Małgorzata Grodzińska-Jurczak⁴, Justyna Liro⁵, Tímea Kiss⁶, Florin-Constantin Mihai⁷

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Nature Conservation, Polish Academy of Sciences, al. Adama Mickiewicza 33, 31-120 Kraków, Poland. Electronic address: liro@iop.krakow.pl.
² Faculty of Geography and Geology, Institute of Geography and Spatial Management, Jagiellonian University, Gronostajowa 7, 30-387 Kraków, Poland; Department of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry, University of Agriculture in Krakow, al. 29 Listopada 46, 31-425 Kraków, Poland.
³ Hydrology and Quantitative Water Management Group, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 3, 6708 PB Wageningen, the Netherlands.
⁴ Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Gronostajowa 7, 30-387 Kraków, Poland.
⁵ Faculty of Geography and Geology, Institute of Geography and Spatial Management, Jagiellonian University, Gronostajowa 7, 30-387 Kraków, Poland.
⁶ Department of Geoinformatics, Physical and Environmental Geography, University of Szeged, 6722 Szeged, Hungary.
⁷ CERNESIM Center, Department of Exact Sciences and Natural Sciences, Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iași, 700506 Iași, Romania.

PMID: 37178849
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164058

Abstract

Plastic waste poses numerous risks to mountain river ecosystems due to their high biodiversity and specific physical characteristics. Here, we provide a baseline assessment for future evaluation of such risks in the Carpathians, one of the most biodiverse mountain ranges in East-Central Europe. We used high-resolution river network and mismanaged plastic waste (MPW) databases to map MPW along the 175,675 km of watercourses draining this ecoregion. We explored MPW levels as a function of altitude, stream order, river basin, country, and type of nature conservation in a given area. The Carpathian watercourses below 750 m a.s.l. (142,282 km, 81 % of the stream lengths) are identified as significantly affected by MPW. Most MPW hotspots (>409.7 t/yr/km²) occur along rivers in Romania (6568 km; 56.6 % of all hotspot lengths), Hungary (2679 km; 23.1 %), and Ukraine (1914 km; 16.5 %). The majority of the river sections flowing through the areas with negligible MPW (< 1 t/yr/km²) occur in Romania (31,855 km; 47.8 %), Slovakia (14,577 km; 21.9 %), and Ukraine (7492; 11.2 %). The Carpathian watercourses flowing through the areas protected at national level (3988 km; 2.3 % of all watercourses studied) have significantly higher MPW values (median = 7.7 t/yr/km²) than those protected at regional (51,800 km; 29.5 %) (median MPW = 1.25 t/yrkm²) and international levels (66 km; 0.04 %) (median MPW = 0 t/yr/km²). Rivers within the Black Sea basin (88.3 % of all studied watercourses) have significantly higher MPW (median = 5.1 t/yr/km², 90th percentile = 381.1 t/yr/km²) than those within the Baltic Sea basin (median = 6.5 t/yr/km², 90th percentile = 84.8 t/yr/km²) (11.1 % of all studied watercourses). Our study indicates the locations and extent of riverine MPW hotspots in the Carpathian Ecoregion, which can support future collaborations between scientists, engineers, governments, and citizens to better manage plastic pollution in this region.

Keywords: Dumping; Gravel-bed rivers; Littering; Plastic disposal; Plastic pollution.