Fig. 2: Modelled riverine plastic exports to coastal seas.
From: River export of macro- and microplastics to seas by sources worldwide
a Total riverine plastic exports to seas (kg/km2 of the sub-basin area/year). b Relative shares of macro- and microplastics in the total river export (fraction, 0–1). c Classification of sub-basins in three classes: I (microplastics dominated from point sources), II (macroplastics dominated from diffuse sources), and III (mixed). The study area has 10,226 sub-basins. Of these, riverine plastics from 6620 sub-basins reach coastal seas. The other sub-basins (indicated in grey) either do not drain into coastal seas (1318 sub-basins) or export zero plastics (2288 sub-basins). In addition, Fig. 2b presents results for selected sub-basins, which drainage areas are higher than five grid cells. Pollution sources are specified in Fig. 3 and Supplementary Fig. 7. Classes are described in Supplementary Note. Source: The MARINA-Plastics model (see the “Methods” section).
