Objective The amount of plastic in our ocean is exponentially growing, with recent estimates of more than 5 million metric tonnes of plastic reaching the ocean each year. This plastic infiltrates the ocean food chain and thus poses a major threat to marine life. However, understanding of plastic movement and its budget in the ocean is inadequate to fully establish its environmental impact, prompting the EU and G7 to recently make marine litter a top science priority.It is now recognised that the amount of plastic entering our ocean is several orders of magnitude larger than the estimates of floating plastic on the surface of the ocean. More than 99% of plastic within our ocean is therefore ‘missing’.This project will make breakthroughs towards closing the plastic budget by creating a novel comprehensive modelling framework that tracks plastic movement through the ocean. Building on well-established previous work to follow generic water parcels through hydrodynamic ocean models, this project will modify these ‘virtual’ parcels to represent pieces of plastic by, for the first time, simulating fragmentation, sinking, beaching, wave-mixing and ingestion by biota. The new parameterisations that underpin this modelling will be based on field data and new coastal flume wave tank lab experiments. The simulated plastic particles will be tracked within state-of-the-art hydrodynamic ocean models, in order to compute maps of pathways and transports around our oceans and on coastlines and in biota. This numerical modelling will be used to evaluate a broad suite of scenarios and test hypotheses, including where the risk to marine biota is greatest. The results from this project will inform policymakers and the public on which countries, for example, are responsible for which part of the plastic problem, crucial for mitigation and legal frameworks. It will also inform engineers on where and how to best invest resources in mitigating the problem of plastic in our ocean. Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2016-STG - ERC Starting Grant Call for proposal ERC-2016-STG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-STG - Starting Grant Coordinator UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT Net EU contribution € 1 276 792,50 Address Heidelberglaan 8 3584 CS Utrecht Netherlands See on map Region West-Nederland Utrecht Utrecht Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00 Beneficiaries (3) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT Netherlands Net EU contribution € 1 276 792,50 Address Heidelberglaan 8 3584 CS Utrecht See on map Region West-Nederland Utrecht Utrecht Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00 IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE Participation ended United Kingdom Net EU contribution € 8 783,75 Address South kensington campus exhibition road SW7 2AZ London See on map Region London Inner London — West Westminster Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00 UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA Spain Net EU contribution € 199 183,75 Address Calle jordi girona 31 08034 Barcelona See on map Region Este Cataluña Barcelona Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00
