The Human Impacts Database

A collection of useful numbers for quantifying the impacts of the human presence on Earth.

This quantity is a single measurement of the quantity at a given point in time (2015).


Value:		≈ 5.5 × 10^-6 kg / m³
HuID:		20155
Relevant Year(s):		2015
Summary:		This represents the mean of measurements from several rivers around the world : Danube, Rhine, Po, Seine, Elqui, Mapo, BioBio, Maule, Patapsco, Magothy, Rhode, Corsica, and Yangtze. The value reports the total concentration of plastics, including micro and macro plastics.
Method:		The concentration of plastic in rivers was measured using surface net devices. Thus, the measurements represent only surface buoyant plastics and do not account for non-buoyant plastics. Lebreton et al. provide a summary analysis based on several studies, more detailed methods of the measurements are available in the primary sources.
Source:		Laurent C.M. Lebreton, Joost van der Zwet, Jan-Willem Damsteeg, Boyan Slat, Anthony Andrady, and Julia Reisser River plastic emissions to the world's oceans. Nature (2017)
Dataset:		Median measurements of total plastic concentration in rivers (Lebreton2017_median_emissions.csv) global resolution
Original Data License:		CC-BY 4.0
Added By:		rbanks