Author(s): Lorenzo Innocenti; Luca Solari

Linked Author(s): Lorenzo Innocenti, Luca Solari

Keywords: Macroplastic pollution; Citizen science; CrowdWater; Florence; Visual observation

Abstract: The need of studying the role of plastic pollution in water ecosystems is now emerged due to the influence on animals and human livelihood. Despite this, there is a lack of data and knowledge on fluxes of riverine litter to the sea, while the quantification of sources, stores and fluxes of plastics throughout river coastal basins is fundamental to better understand the plastic litter dynamics. Recent studies observed that only the 3% of the plastic waste generated within the river basin reach the ocean, so a large part of the plastic waste remains entrapped within the river system. In this context, urban areas along the rivers corridor have a great importance due to their role as source of plastics, and due to presence of in-channel structures. In this work, the macroplastics monitoring in the urban water system of the city of Florence (Italy) is presented, particularly focusing on the Arno River that cross the city. The survey was carried out in 2021 using the citizen science methodology implemented in the CrowdWater mobile application, which allows the classification and geo-referencing of plastic items. PO-soft and PO-hard plastics were the two main observed plastic typologies, that account for more than the 50% of the total observed items. Three hotspots for plastics were identified along the Arno River, these locations were surveyed two times, in June and in October, in order to highlight the role of seasonality on the plastic pollution. A doubled number of plastics was observed between summer and autumn.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3850/IAHR-39WC252171192022887

Year: 2022