Session programme

State-of-the-art environmental research infrastructures become increasingly complex and costly, often requiring integration of different equipment, services, and data, as well as extensive international collaboration. Clear and measurable impact of the research Infrastructures is therefore needed in order to justify such investments (from member states and the EU) - whether it is an impact in terms of knowledge, developments in the environmental field of science, new innovative approaches, capacity-building or other socio-economic impacts. Moreover, improving the impact supports the long-term sustainability of the research infrastructures.

This session aims at discussing how to best monitor, interpret, and assess the efficiency and impact of environmental and Earth system research infrastructures. Even more importantly, the session seeks a breadth of contributions, with focus on ways to increase and improve the impact of research infrastructures, not only through the scientific outcomes they produce, but also, for example, through increasing the number of touchpoints with other actors in the society, or awareness of the services they offer- whether this is enhanced by lobbying, direct cooperation with industrial partners, or any other action. Talks on how to enhance the impact through the strategic communications activities are especially welcome.

Plastic contamination has been reported in all realms of the environment from the tropics to the polar oceans. The consequences of this contamination may be severe for ecosystems and could adversely affect ecosystem services such as fisheries and even human health. Our poor knowledge of plastics sources, their composition, sizes, pathways, hot spots of accumulation and ultimate fate prevents an assessment of environmental risks and the development of appropriate mitigation strategies. In order to understand current distributions of plastics and the way they evolve in space and time, much better observations and common consistent measuring methods are required but simultaneously, observations must be combined with computational models from their sources on land to rivers, estuaries, oceans and sea ice. This requires improved standardized accurate observations and the development of advanced modelling capabilities to quantify and predict contamination levels.

The session aims to set up a forum for multi-disciplinary discussions to create a global picture of plastic contamination in the environment and to suggest approaches for future research, monitoring and mitigation of plastic pollutions impacts. The session will provide a framework to advise legislators and industry on the best ways to reduce the risks of serious damage from this contaminant.

This session will draw together data on plastic contamination across all sizes of plastics, from nano- and micro-plastics to large plastic fragments, and across all environments and locations. It will combine observations with state-of-the-art computational modelling to promote the fast advance of research and improve our understanding of how plastic pollution affects environments worldwide. We invite contributions on new methods and field observations, laboratory experiments, novel modelling approaches, related scientific initiatives and projects. New ideas for citizen-science involvement and for mitigation strategies to reduce plastic contamination of the environment are especially welcome.

Invited speaker: Prof. Dr. Erik van Sebille