Speaker: Dr. Erik van Sebille, Utrecht University

Title: Whose plastic is that? Combining ocean physics with Bayesian inference to track marine plastic pollution

Abstract: The world's ocean currents can transport material like plastic over vast scales, connecting waste generated on one continent to impacts on another. Yet, it seems most plastic pollution found at any particular location is relatively local, often originating from within the same country. Effective policies to reduce the impact of plastic pollution require knowledge of whose plastic ends up where.

In this seminar, I will present some recent work on using a Bayesian framework to analyze the sources of plastics found on beaches around the world. The input to this analysis comes from Lagrangian ocean analysis simulations with the OceanParcels.org tool, which I will also showcase. I will discuss how we develop new parameterizations for subgrid-scale transport processes of floating plastic items; and compare these parameterizations to field and lab measurements.