EGU21-2033, updated on 03 Mar 2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-2033
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Method and challenges of tracing soil-surface transport of microplastic particles with an advanced-imaging sCMOS camera

Hannes Laermanns1, David Haas1,2, Marcel Klee1, Florian Steininger1, Martin Löder3, and Christina Bogner1
Hannes Laermanns et al.
  • 1Ecosystem Research Group, Institute of Geography, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany (h.laermanns@uni-koeln.de)
  • 2Institut of Geography, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany
  • 3Animal Ecology I, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

Although the impact of microplastic particles (MPs) in different ecosystems has recently become subject of numerous studies, the knowledge of spatial distribution and transport of MP in terrestrial environments is still limited. While first studies in this field have focused on the abundance of MPs in soils and its vertical distribution, only little is known about the mechanisms of MP transport on the surfaces of sediments and soils. To analyse the interaction between soil surface roughness, inclination and irrigation rate, we investigate MP surface transport mechanisms and patterns by using images of an advanced scientific complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (sCMOS) high-resolution camera. For this study an experimental set-up including a flume box with several surfaces and an artificial irrigation system was used. In this setup we traced pathways of fluorescent amorphously shaped polystyrene (PS) and Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) particles on surfaces of different roughnesses and inclination. Subsequently, time series of the images were analyzed by combining R and Python packages was. This included the calculation of MP particle size, estimation of pathways and path lengths.  Our first results suggest a large influence of the water film thickness and the microrelief of the studied surfaces leading to the creation of preferential pathways for the MP particles.

How to cite: Laermanns, H., Haas, D., Klee, M., Steininger, F., Löder, M., and Bogner, C.: Method and challenges of tracing soil-surface transport of microplastic particles with an advanced-imaging sCMOS camera, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-2033, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-2033, 2021.