Earth Surface Dynamics
Earth Surface Dynamics
ESurf
Articles | Volume 13, issue 4
Articles | Volume 13, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-13-771-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-13-771-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 13, issue 4
Research article
 | Highlight paper
 | 
26 Aug 2025
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 26 Aug 2025

A numerical model of microplastic erosion, transport, and deposition for fluvial systems

John J. Armitage and Sébastien Rohais

Cited articles

Armitage, J. J.: HAIL-CAESAR: microplastic model development branch, GitHub [code], https://github.com/johnjarmitage/HAIL-CAESAR/tree/plastic (last access: 30 November 2023), 2023. a, b
Armitage, J.: johnjarmitage/caesarPy: caesarpy v0, Version v0.1, Zenodo [code], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16873412, 2025a. a
Armitage, J. J.: Notebooks and scripts on microplastic transport, GitHub [code], https://ifpen-gitlab.appcollaboratif.fr/1d-microplastic-fluvial-transport/microplastic1d, last access: 14 August 2025b. a
Barnes, R., Lehman, C., and Mulla, D.: Priority-flood: An optimal depression-filling and watershed-labeling algorithm for digital elevation models, Comput. Geosci., 62, 117–127, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2013.04.024, 2014. a
Barnhart, K. R., Hutton, E. W. H., Tucker, G. E., Gasparini, N. M., Istanbulluoglu, E., Hobley, D. E. J., Lyons, N. J., Mouchene, M., Nudurupati, S. S., Adams, J. M., and Bandaragoda, C.: Short communication: Landlab v2.0: a software package for Earth surface dynamics, Earth Surf. Dynam., 8, 379–397, https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-8-379-2020, 2020. a
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Understanding and modeling plastic transport in rivers is crucial because rivers act as major conduits for plastic waste from land to ocean. The study presents a model that provides insights into how plastics move through river systems. This work not only advances scientific understanding of pollutant dynamics but also supports environmental management, and helps protect aquatic ecosystems from the escalating threat of plastic pollution.
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Rivers transport microplastic pollution from its source to its eventual marine sink. Rivers are not simple conveyor belts of this pollution. Microplastic will become entrained within the sediments, becoming part of the river catchment environment. We develop a reduced complexity model to capture the transport and deposition of microplastic. By comparing our model to observations from the Têt River, France, we find that large quantities of microplastic must be stored within the river sediments.
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