An evaluation of the River-OSPAR method for quantifying macrolitter on Dutch riverbanks

Abstract

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Same but Different: A Framework to Design and Compare Riverbank Plastic Monitoring Strategies

“…However, when the aim of monitoring is to gather more holistic understanding on the spatial distribution of riverine plastic on a (multi) river basin scale, the number of sampling sites, and with it the required effort, increases. For example, The Schone Rivieren protocol used over 200 sampling sites to examine the Dutch segments of the Rhine and Meuse rivers (van Emmerik et al, 2020a), and the Plastic Pirates project had a total of 360 sampling sites to sample five major rivers across Germany. Difficulties arise with finding enough trained professionals to do sampling with so many sampling sites.…”

“…Depending on the goal of the monitoring program, data collection can be extended by collecting data at multiple distancebased zones, ranging from close to far from the river. By logging the distance of litter compared to the river, it can be determined at what levels of river discharge specific litter items are transported and deposited (van Emmerik et al, 2020a). This sub-element can be introduced by subdividing the sampling area in different (hydrological) zones, and determining what plastic is found within these zones.…”

“…A structured process allows for site specific time trend analysis of plastic but is less suitable for examining the spatial variance of macroplastic along the river (van Emmerik et al, 2020a). An unstructured location decision process allocates sampling sites randomly along the river.…”

“…However, such a large-scale effort does not yet exist for riverbank plastic pollution. Given the recent interest in riverbank plastic monitoring (e.g., Battulga et al, 2019;Kiessling et al, 2019;van Emmerik et al, 2020a), the aim of this paper is to contribute to the harmonization of these riverbank plastic monitoring efforts.…”

“…Riverbank plastic monitoring aims to systematically collect data that can aid with developing strategies to decrease plastic pollution. Several of these efforts have been documented in the scientific literature (e.g., Battulga et al, 2019;Kiessling et al, 2019;van Emmerik et al, 2020a), but a large section of riverbank litter identification protocols remains unreported in peer-reviewed literature (Owens and Kamil, 2020). The driving questions, methods, types of observers, and types of data output vary greatly between protocols, which can create difficulties when comparing results between different programs (Owens and Kamil, 2020).…”