River plastic transport affected by tidal dynamics

Summary

Abstract. Plastic is an emerging pollutant, and the quantities in rivers and oceans are expected to increase. Rivers are assumed to transport land-based plastic into the ocean, and the fluvial and marine transport processes have been relatively well studied to date. However, the processes controlling the transport in tidal rivers and estuaries, the interface between fluvial and marine systems, remain largely unresolved. For this reason, current estimates of riverine plastic pollution and export into the ocean remain highly uncertain. Hydrodynamics in tidal rivers and estuaries are influenced by tides and freshwater discharge. As a consequence, flow velocity direction and magnitude can change diurnally. In turn, this impacts the transport dynamics of solutes and pollutants, including plasti