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Marine pollution, ecotoxicology and sustainability
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Modelling the fate and transport of marine debris with TrackMPD: a case study for shipping containers spill in the East coast of Australia Isabel Jalon-Rojas* , The Sino-Australian Research Centre for Coastal Management, School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, UNSW Canberra, Canberra, Australia Fanglou Liao, The Sino-Australian Research Centre for Coastal Management, School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, UNSW Canberra, Canberra, Australia Xiao Hua Wang, The Sino-Australian Research Centre for Coastal Management, School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, UNSW Canberra, Canberra, Australia Erick Fredj, Jerusalem College of Technology, Jerusalem, Israel Presenter Email: i.jalonrojas@unsw.edu.au |
Pollution of coastal and marine environments by plastic and other synthetic materials, so-called marine debris, has become a major issue over the last few decades. In this work, we present TrackMPD, a new user-friendly modelling framework to evaluate and predict the transport and fate of marine debris. Unlike most of previous models, TrackMPD considers a three-dimensional approach, provides compatibility with a variety of ocean models, and includes a wide range of physical processes (advection, dispersion, windage, sinking, settling, beaching and re-floating). In the case of micro-plastic debris, TrackMPD can incorporate its behaviour according to the particle dynamical properties, and the fouling and degradation state. A case study to forecast the spread of a shipping containers spill is used to illustrate the model application. On June 1st 2018, a total of eight-one containers were spilled near Port Stephens (East coast of Australia). Debris was spotted to wash up along the coast of New South Wales, but some containers have not been found to this day. The modelled trajectories of floating debris accurately reproduce the beaching patterns of the spotted debris. Results show that both wind and the eddies of the East Australian Current highly affect the transport of the debris.
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