Plastic Pollution in Lake Ontario Under a Changing Environment: Input, Fate, and Interactions with Human Health
Plastic Pollution in Lake Ontario Under a Changing Environment: Input, Fate, and Interactions with Human Health
Project Team
Steven Day, PhD; Christy Tyler, PhD; Andre Hudson, PhD; Nathan Eddingsaas, PhD; and Matt Hoffman, PhD. Maria Kazour, PhD, Sydney VanWinkle, MS, Mira Ghosh, Sophie Routenberg, Alonso Ponce, Maddox Bush, Jayson Kucharek, Autumn Potts, Nikki Fuller, Oyindamola Okusanya, Evan Batte
Project Description
The overarching goal of Project 1 is to understand what types of plastic pose the greatest risk for ecosystem integrity and human health now and in the future. This includes assessment of how risk varies spatially (where are organisms and people most likely to be exposed?) and temporally (are seasonal changes, potential environmental changes, or transformations of plastic over time, integral to risk?). Ultimately, we will produce predictive models to identify hotspots of input, accumulation, and potential exposure for people and aquatic organisms.
Research Questions
- What are the greatest sources of plastic debris? What types of plastic are most common in Lake Ontario?
- Input of plastic through stormwater: hotspots of input and relationship to climate drivers.
- Abundance and composition of microplastic in the nearshore region of Lake Ontario.
- What happens to plastic in the environment? Do changing weather and water chemistry shift potential risk?
- Chemical, mechanical and biological transformations of plastic under projected temperature and pH scenarios.
- Where does it go?
- Predictive modeling of input and fate of MP in the watershed and in Lake Ontario under present and future scenarios.