International Freshwater Microplastics Network

迄今为止，大多数关于微塑料对环境影响的研究都集中在海洋（沿海和海洋）环境上。然而，人们越来越多地接受微塑料也普遍存在于淡水（河流和湖泊）系统中。来自世界各地河流的有限数量的研究都发现微塑料存在于河床沉积物或水柱的样本中。这是令人担忧的，因为微塑料的生态毒理学影响可能会对一系列淡水物种产生负面影响，如果与微塑料相关的污染物进入人类食物链，则会带来额外的公共卫生问题。关于淡水中微塑料科学的一个基本问题是缺乏数据来生成基于物理的模型。因此，很难确定河流中微塑料的“正常”水平，因此这些水平是否对生态系统或社会构成可接受的风险水平，或者清理或补救策略应该针对哪里。为了取得有意义的进展，这一问题需要迅速达成国际共识，以便能够适当地综合正在进行的和未来的研究工作，以提供有意义的循证政策。该提案旨在通过组建一个由国际领先的淡水微塑料专家组成的新网络来应对这一挑战。该网络将开展一项有重点的数据收集方案。通过汇集这些数据，并在一系列研讨会上使用它们来生成新的数值模型，该网络将能够就流入海洋的淡水塑料总量得出更可靠的结论。这将解决该学科目前面临的重大障碍，从而允许进一步开发更多基于物理的模型。只有通过全球伙伴关系种子基金提供的联网机会，才能实现这一重大成果。

To date, most research into the impact of microplastics in the environment has focussed on marine (coastal and ocean) environments. However, there is growing acceptance that microplastics are also pervasive within freshwater (river and lake) systems. The limited number of studies from rivers around the world have all found microplastics to be present within samples of river bed sediments or the water column. This is of concern as the ecotoxicological impact of microplastics will likely have a negative impact on a range of freshwater species with an additional public health concern if pollutants associated with microplastics then enter the human food chain. A fundamental issue regarding the science of microplastics in freshwaters is a lack of data with which to generate physically based models. This thus makes it very hard to establish what are 'normal' levels of microplastics within our rivers and hence whether such levels represent an acceptable level of risk to ecosystems or society more generally, or where clean-up or remediation strategies should be targeted. To make meaningful progress, this issue requires international consensus to be agreed quickly so that ongoing and future research efforts can be properly synthesised to provide meaningful evidence-based policy. The purpose of this proposal is to meet this challenge by assembling a new network of internationally leading freshwater microplastics experts. This network will undertake a focused programme of data collection. By pooling this data and using it to generate new numerical models at a series of workshops the network will be able to reach more robust conclusions as to the overall freshwater plastic flux to the oceans. This will address the significant stumbling block the discipline currently faces and thus allow further development of more physically based models. Such a significant deliverable can only be achieved by the sort of networking opportunity that is facilitated by the global partnerships seedcorn fund.