Lagrangian tracking of plastic particles in coastal areas and evaluation of beaching

While there is a reasonable understanding of how plastic particles would be carried by currents and waves in the open ocean, the way that plastics move from the open ocean onto coastlines or from coastal waters to the ocean is not clear at all. Global Ocean Models do not explicitly resolve the surf zone, so there is no way to seamlessly track a virtual parcel from the open ocean to the beach. This PhD project aims to improve understanding on how much plastic from the potential ocean stock remains in coastal waters and eventually returns to the emerged beach (“beaching”).

The PhD project will encompass numerical Coastal hydrodynamics simulations with advanced Lagrangian tracking techniques and laboratory experimentation at the Imperial College Hydrodynamics Laboratory. The process of plastic parcels “beaching” will be analysed and parameterized as a “beaching probability” needed to improve plastic predictions made by global models. The integration of Coastal and Global Ocean models tracking plastic parcels will be also attempted. A final aim is to be able to track the origin of plastic littering the UK coasts. This project is a collaborative project between Imperial College London (Dr Jose M Alsina) and the University of Utrecht (Dr Erik van Sebille).