Establishment of numerical beach-litter hindcast/forecast models: An application to Goto Islands, Japan

Using Numerical Model Simulations to Improve the Understanding of Micro-plastic Distribution and Pathways in the Marine Environment

“…Numerical modeling has been applied to track back or hindcast from where plastics in the ocean may have come (sensu; Kako et al, 2011), and these same approaches could be used for micro-plastic. Hindcasting is particularly useful for source identification, especially where accumulation regions have been identified.…”

Characteristics, seasonal distribution and surface degradation features of microplastic pellets along the Goa coast, India

“…However, direct movement of plastics due to wind drift is neglected in many oceanographic models of plastic movement studies in marine environment (Martinez et al, 2009;Kako et al, 2011;Reisser et al, 2013;Isobe et al, 2009Isobe et al, , 2014Maes and Blanke, 2015). Kubota (1994) simulated a simple model for Hawaiian Islands, combining geostrophic, Ekman and Stokes currents as follows: floating debris is first brought by Ekman currents on the northern flank of trade winds, then advected eastward by geostrophic currents, and finally deposited on the north of the Islands.…”

Combining Litter Observations with a Regional Ocean Model to Identify Sources and Sinks of Floating Debris in a Semi-enclosed Basin: The Adriatic Sea

“…Identifying sources and sinks of AMD can assist resource managers maximize the effectiveness of prevention and response efforts by providing scientific support to the implementation of public policies. While progress has been made, most relevant studies either relied on observations of beached AMD (Yoon et al, 2010;Kako et al, 2011Kako et al, , 2014Neumann et al, 2014), made assumptions about the amount of AMD as well as its temporal and/or spatial distributions (Lebreton et al, 2012;Critchell et al, 2015;Mansui et al, 2015;Liubartseva et al, 2016), or used coarse resolution velocity data and/or idealized surface currents (Aliani and Molcard, 2003;Maximenko et al, 2012;van Sebille et al, 2012;Reisser et al, 2013;Isobe et al, 2014). Such studies have identified the physical processes relevant to the transport and accumulation of debris, however, the efficacy of models in aiding management efforts depends strongly on the assumptions applied in the particle tracking scheme (Critchell and Lambrechts, 2016) as well as the resolution and accuracy of the underlying velocity field (Putman and He, 2013).…”

“…Furthermore, even relatively highresolution regional models, like the one employed here, cannot resolve complex shoreline topography. Additionally, a resource manager coordinating cleanup efforts is not faced with the mean state, which is most commonly reported by modeling studies, but instead must respond to debris loads that can vary in space and time (Kako et al, 2010(Kako et al, , 2011 in response to numerous environmental (Critchell and Lambrechts, 2016) and human factors (Slavin et al, 2012;Munari et al, 2016).…”