Analysis of Meandering River Morphodynamics Using Satellite Remote Sensing Data—An Application in the Lower Deduru Oya (River), Sri Lanka

River meandering and anabranching have become major problems in many large rivers that carry significant amounts of sediment worldwide. The morphodynamics of these rivers are complex due to the temporal variation of flows. However, the availability of remote sensing data and geographic information systems (GISs) provides the opportunity to analyze the morphological changes in river systems both quantitatively and qualitatively. The present study investigated the temporal changes in the river morphology of the Deduru Oya (river) in Sri Lanka, which is a meandering river. The study covered a period of 32 years (1989 to 2021), using Landsat satellite data and the QGIS platform. Cloud-free Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 satellite images were extracted and processed to extract the river mask. The centerline of the river was generated using the extracted river mask, with the support of semi-automated digitizing software (WebPlotDigitizer). Freely available QGIS was used to investigate the temporal variation of river migration. The results of the study demonstrated that, over the past three decades, both the bend curvatures and the river migration rates of the meandering bends have generally increased with time. In addition, it was found that a higher number of meandering bends could be observed in the lower (most downstream) and the middle parts of the selected river segment. The current analysis indicates that the Deduru Oya has undergone considerable changes in its curvature and migration rates.publishedVersio

Evaluating the Current State of Findability and Accessibility of Microplastics Data

Tia Jenkins1, Bhaleka D. Persaud1, Win Cowger2, Kathy Szigeti3, Dominique G. Roche4,5, Erin Clary6, Stephanie Slowinski1, Benjamin Lei1, Amila Abeynayaka7, Ebenezer S. Nyadjro8,9, Thomas Maes10, Leah Thornton Hampton11, Melanie Bergmann12, Julian Aherne13, Sherri A. Mason14, John F. Honek15, Fereidoun Rezanezhad1, Amy L. Lusher16, Andy M. Booth17, Rodney D. L. Smith15 and Philippe Van Cappellen1. Affiliations: 1 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada 2 Moore Institute for Plastic Pollution Research, Long Beach, CA, United States 3 Davis Centre Library, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada 4 Department of Biology, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada 5 Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland 6 Digital Research Alliance of Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada 7 Institute for Global Environment Strategies (IGES), Kanagawa, Japan 8 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), Stennis Space Center, Starkville, MS, United States 9 Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University, Stennis Space Center, Starkville, MS, United States 10 GRID-Arendal, Arendal, Norway 11 Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP), Costa Mesa, CA, United States 12 Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Bremerhaven, Germany 13 School of Environment, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada 14 The Behrend College, Pennsylvania State University, Erie, PA, United States 15 Department of Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada 16 Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Oslo, Norway 17 SINTEF Ocean, Trondheim, NorwayThe rapid growth in microplastic pollution research is influencing funding priorities, environmental policy, and public perceptions of risks to water quality and environmental and human health. Ensuring that environmental microplastics research data are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) is essential to inform policy and mitigation strategies. We present a bibliographic analysis of data sharing practices in the environmental microplastics research community, highlighting the state of openness of microplastics data. A stratified (by year) random subset of 785 of 6,608 microplastics articles indexed in Web of Science indicates that, since 2006, less than a third (28.5%) contained a data sharing statement. These statements further show that most often, the data were provided in the articles’ supplementary material (38.8%) and only 13.8% via a data repository. Of the 279 microplastics datasets found in online data repositories, 20.4% presented only metadata with access to the data requiring additional approval. Although increasing, the rate of microplastic data sharing still lags behind that of publication of peer-reviewed articles on environmental microplastics. About a quarter of the repository data originated from North America (12.8%) and Europe (13.4%). Marine and estuarine environments are the most frequently sampled systems (26.2%); sediments (18.8%) and water (15.3%) are the predominant media. Of the available datasets accessible, 15.4% and 18.2% do not have adequate metadata to determine the sampling location and media type, respectively. We discuss five recommendations to strengthen data sharing practices in the environmental microplastic research community. Read more at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2022.912107/fullNSERC/ECCC Alliance Grants - Plastics science for a cleaner future program, Grant ALLRP 558435-20 || The Canada First Research Excellence Fund Global Water Futures Programme || The McPike Zima Charitable || The PoF IV program “Changing Earth - Sustaining our Future” Topic 6.4 of the German Helmholtz Association || The Research Council of Norway projects REVEAL, Grant 301157 || ANDROMEDA, Grant 312262 || MicroLEACH, Grant 295174 || The Early-Career Research Fellowship from the Gulf Research Program of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Grant 2000012639 || European Union’s Horizon 2020 Coordination and Support Action programme, Grant 101003805 (EUROqCHARM) || The Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie, Grant 838237-OPTIMISE

Science-Policy Interface for Plastic Pollution: Key Principles for an Effective Science-policy Interface

The launch of the report "Science-Policy Interface for Plastic Pollution" by GRID-Arendal was organized within the framework of the Geneva Beat Plastic Pollution Dialogues, in the lead-up to the third session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-3) taking place from 13 to 19 November 2023, in Nairobi, Kenya, and the second session of the ad hoc open-ended working group to prepare proposals for the Science-Policy Panel to Contribute Further to the Sound Management of Chemicals and Waste and to Prevent Pollution, scheduled for December 2023. This presentation focuses on key principles for an effective science-policy interface, including transparency, scientific integrity, independence, inclusivity, ethics and conflict of interest, communication and engagement, accountability, long-term perspective, flexibility, and the regional context, with specific challenges and opportunities that need to be considered

Microplastics in Freshwater Environment in Asia: A Systematic Scientific Review

Microplastics (MPs) are an emerging pollutant in the aquatic environment, and this has gradually been recognized in the Asian region. This systematic review study, using the Scopus database, provides an insightful understanding of the spatial distribution of scientific studies on MPs in freshwater conducted across the Asian region, utilized sampling methods, and a detailed assessment of the effects of MPs on different biotic components in freshwater ecosystems, with special focus on its potential risks on human health. The results of this review indicate that research on microplastics in Asia has gained attention since 2014, with a significant increase in the number of studies in 2018, and the number of scientific studies quadrupled in 2021 compared to 2018. Results indicated that despite a significant amount of research has been conducted in many Asian countries, they were not distributed evenly, as multiple studies selected specific rivers and lakes. Additionally, around two-thirds of all the papers focused their studies in China, followed by India and South Korea. It was also found that most of the studies focused primarily on reporting the occurrence levels of MPs in freshwater systems, such as water and sediments, and aquatic organisms, with a lack of studies investigating the human intake of MPs and their potential risks to human health. Notably, comparing the results is a challenge because diverse sampling, separation, and identification methods were applied to estimate MPs. This review study suggests that further research on the dynamics and transport of microplastics in biota and humans is needed, as Asia is a major consumer of seafood products and contributes significantly to the generation of plastic litter in the marine environment. Moreover, this review study revealed that only a few studies extended their discussions to policies and governance aspects of MPs. This implies the need for further research on policy and governance frameworks to address this emerging water pollutant more holistically

Life Cycle Assessment of Selected Single-Use Plastic Products towards Evidence-Based Policy Recommendations in Sri Lanka

The global demand for plastic is expected to double in the next 20 years. The increasing demand for Single-Use Plastic Products (SUPPs) has become one of the main environmental problems in many developing countries, including Sri Lanka, through direct and indirect means, in the way of excessive consumption and the pollution of the environment through waste generation. In this way, there is a pressing need to accelerate the sustainability evaluation, comparison, impact mitigation and policy recommendation of SUPPs to address the environmental impacts and sustainable development. Therefore, this study aims to quantify and compare the environmental impacts of SUPPs for policy decision making in Sri Lanka using life cycle assessment (LCA) techniques. Accordingly, the most popular and widely used single-use plastic products, which are under consideration for regulation in Sri Lanka, and their possible alternatives, are considered for this LCA study. The results reveal that SUPPs produced using polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) have a significant contribution in all life cycle stages, in terms of global warming potential (GWP) and endpoint impact categories. However, the outcomes of the study reveal that the net GWP impact of SUPPs that have recycling practice at the end of life shows better performance compared to incineration and landfill. In addition, the polylactic acid- (PLA)-based products also show a significant impact on mid- and end-point GWP impact categories. Remarkably, the midpoint analysis of PLA-based products and their alternatives emphasized that PLA production was the most impactful for most of the midpoint impact categories due to PLA resin production, which contributes significantly to all impact categories. In particular, for the pesticide bottles with the preferred end-of-life option of incineration, the HDPE indicates a 7.6% lower GWP compared to PET. For reusable steel cutlery, the largest GWP-associated life cycle stage is the user phase (97.5%), which includes cleaning the cutlery. However, the overall reduction in GWP in the use of steel, considering the best (PS with recycling) and worst (PS with incineration) case scenarios, with single-use items are 0.01 and 0.05 kg CO2 (eq), respectively. In the case of pesticide bottles, with the preferred end-of-life option being incineration, the HDPE indicates a 7.6% lower GWP compared to PET. the study reveals that conducting LCA will facilitate scientific decision making for policy interventions related to SUPPs and their processes. Notably, the study shows that, at present, the capability of conducting LCA studies to evaluate the sustainability performance of SUPPs in Sri Lanka is limited due to the lack of life cycle inventory (LCI) data availability on SUPPs and relevant waste management practices in Sri Lanka