Heavy flooding can cause entire villages and cities to be covered by water. A new study by Wageningen University & Research in collaboration with ECMWF and VU Amsterdam, published in Environmental Research Letters, shows that these natural disasters mobilise huge amounts of waste. In some cases, the amount of plastic waste floating in rivers increased no less than forty times. Their analysis shows that heavy and frequent flooding, in particular, mobilises enormous amounts of waste.
Moreover, there are significant differences between countries. In some areas the amount of waste doubled while in other regions twenty to forty times the normal volume of waste ended up in rivers. Countries with heavily populated deltas such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and Egypt fall in the second category.
A relationship between natural disasters and waste had already been established in the past. How exactly floods cause plastic waste to be displaced is yet unclear. It has to do with the dynamics of floods and calls for further research. However, the results indicate that floods and other natural disasters merit more attention in strategies to mitigate the problem of waste in rivers. Moreover, the study underscores the value of dykes, dams and other flood protection mechanisms.
Source: Mirage News
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