Evaluating microplastic trapping efficiency in seagrass meadows using hydraulic flume simulations
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Electronic versions
Documents
- Cousins, A et al, 2025
Final published version, 4.91 MB, PDF document
Licence: CC BY Show licence
DOI
Microplastic (MP) pollution poses a significant environmental threat, with projections indicating a 50-fold increase in pollution levels by 2100. Seagrass meadows, important for carbon storage and sediment stabilisation, may also serve as a Nature-based Solution for MP pollution. Despite the well-documented presence of MPs in seagrass sediments, the efficiencies of MP capture by these habitats remain largely unexplored. In this study, hydraulic flume simulations were conducted to assess how different seagrass planting configurations influence MP trapping. The results indicate that meadows with random spatial distribution are 6 % more effective at trapping MPs under high concentrations compared to grid-patterned meadows, while lower planting densities enhance trapping efficiency by 14 %. These findings offer insights into optimising seagrass restoration efforts for mitigating MP pollution, and this highlights the need for further needed to understand the broader ecological implications of MP retention in these critical ecosystems.
Keywords
- Seagrass, Microplastics, Hydraulic Flume, Nature-based Solution
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 117660 |
Journal | Marine Pollution Bulletin |
Volume | 213 |
Early online date | 11 Feb 2025 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 11 Feb 2025 |