A NUMERICAL-BASED APPROACH TO PREDICT PLASTIC LITTER PATHWAYS IN COASTAL AREAS

The problem of marine plastic litter is an issue of great concern, because of the long time needed for its complete decomposition, from ten to several thousand years, and the impacts on marine ecosystems and human health (Lebreton and Andrady, 2019, Soares et al. 2020). In Europe, about 500.000 tons of plastic litter are released into the sea every year (Interreg Europe, 2021), most of which is produced inland by agricultural, industrial and urban activities, and then transported by rivers towards the sea (Lebreton and Andrady, 2019). Moreover, the COVID- 19 pandemic caused more than 25,000 tons of pandemic- associated plastic waste entering the global ocean (Peng et al., 2021). On one hand, the reduction of marine plastic waste should be pursued through the development of a greater environmental conscience based on education and dissemination of scientific knowledge (Soares et al., 2020), as well as through the implementation of circular economy management models (Lee, 2021; Wang et al., 2022). On the other hand, the removal of already produced plastic litter through both beach cleanup and technologies should be performed according to strategic and efficient intervention schemes based on the knowledge of its trajectories, destinations and fates (Critchell and Lambrechts, 2016; Van Sebille et al., 2020; Guerrini et al., 2021). Numerical models are the only existing tools for the prediction of marine plastic pathways. In this context, the present work proposes an open-source numerical modeling chain to predict pathways and fates of marine plastic transport in coastal regions, which is able to provide useful information for the management of cleaning operation in the study area. The proposed numerical-based approach is applied to the coastal region that includes the Marine Protected Area (MPA) of Capo Milazzo (Italy).