Plastic pollution is ubiquitous in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. Reliable data on plastic abundance and fluxes are crucial to study its sources, sinks, transport dynamics, and impact. Furthermore, long-term and large-scale monitoring is required to design, implement, and assess plastic pollution prevention and reduction measures. In this session we invite contributions that present recent advances in plastic pollution monitoring across the entire Geosphere (atmosphere, land surface, soil, rivers, estuaries, oceans and beyond). Presentations may focus on:
• Novel monitoring methods, including advanced techniques (e.g. remote sensing, multi/hyperspectral cameras, acoustic sensors, artificial intelligence);
• Monitoring strategies, including large-scale and long-term efforts, and citizen science approaches;
• All plastic size ranges, from nano to macro;
• Baseline studies to assess current plastic pollution levels;
• Long-term trends or recent discoveries based on plastic monitoring data.
With this session we aim to bring together scientists that work on novel approaches to provide reliable data on environmental plastic pollution.