An update on the oceanography work led by Dr Erik van Sebille from Utrecht University as part of our Plastic Pollution Free Galapagos Programme.
Pacific Plastics: Science to Solutions Project Manager
Galapagos Conservation Trusts’s Plastic Pollution Free Galapagos Programme (PPFG) programme sits within the wider, regional Pacific Plastics: Science to Solutions network. There are three streams of this work:
The flows of plastic waste into the ocean and the relationship with consumption and waste management systems are poorly understood both in mainland Ecuador and Galapagos. Here we will provide an update on the oceanography work led by Dr Erik van Sebille from Utrecht University which forms part of the Sources stream listed above. This work aims to establish robust scientific approaches to understand and monitor the sources, distribution and fate of plastic waste. This work will culminate in the development of a high-resolution oceanographic model that predicts sources and movements of incoming floating plastic from oceanic sources to enable an efficient clean-up response.
The first step for the team at Utrecht University was to produce a series of predictive oceanographic computer simulations that model the flow of plastics in and around the Galapagos Marine Reserve to answer the first main question: where is plastic coming from and how does it get to Galapagos? Using a continental-scale model, the team concluded that remote sources of plastic pollution to Galapagos are largely from South and Central American coastlines, in particular northern Peru and southern Ecuador (Figure 1). They also concluded that plastic would not pass through the Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR) if released from Asia (Figure 2). This second finding was particularly important as it implicated the international fishing fleet, especially the Chinese fishing fleet, having poor waste management, as a high volume of Chinese plastic waste is found in Galapagos each year which we now know is unable to come from the mainland.
Following the work done at the regional scale, the next step for the team is an archipelago-scale oceanographic model. This model has been finished but one final improvement is needed. Since September 2021, Inti Keith, Principal Investigator of Marine Invasive Species at Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) and her team have released almost 50 drifters (floating sensors) around the Archipelago.
These drifters are carried by ocean currents as plastic would be and relay real-time data on their location to the team at Utrecht. Excitingly, the drifters can be seen in real-time on Utrecht University’s website. We will use this data to further refine the model, identifying sources closer to the GMR (e.g. fisheries) and predict how pollution moves within the GMR to inform cleanups, as well as education and advocacy campaigns, increasing the cost-effectiveness and impact of each.
The final stage of this work will be to develop a forecasting tool to support efficient clean-ups. To do this, we will produce three complementary models. Firstly, a Master’s student will model the distribution of plastics in the open ocean and around the GMR based on the sources of plastics (fishing activity and river outputs from the mainland). Secondly, this will feed into a forecast model predicting where and when plastic will arrive in Galapagos. Thirdly, the cleanup efficiency model will be optimised for the most cost-effective, least invasive, and most impactful cleanup locations. Finally, this model will be developed into a real-time app, informing Galapagos National Park (GNP) teams on where clean up resources should be focused.
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