Impact
LAMARCA project will contribute to the fundamental knowledge about the Lagrangian dynamics in three dimensional oceanic flows and the submesoscale impact on the transport of material from the sea surface to the ocean interior, in particular in coastal waters.
This project will bring an essential breakthrough contribution to the effort of understanding marine litter and microplastic dynamics, distribution and dispersion through the surface, water column and over the seafloor.
- Providing better knowledge of the physical processes that contribute to the aggregation and subduction of particles in the ocean (with emphasis in coastal zones).
- Improving the observational, physical and mathematical modeling capabilities to simulate the sinking of microplastics with different sizes and densities in marine flows.
- Generating a suite of Lagrangian metrics useful to describe the three-dimensional geometry of the flow structures and their associated transport properties.
- Improving knowledge about marine litter windrows Establish transport connectivity patterns both in surface and in the vertical.
- Providing an Open Source Lagrangian modeling system, LAMARCA, with the principle ‘what you see is what you get’. This software will provide a template of transport using the Lagrangian metrics developed, complemented with machine-learning methods, which can be used in other regions with velocity data.
- Bringing a novel comprehensive modeling framework that tracks plastic movement through the ocean.
LAMARCA will contribute to enhancing science-based decision-making for marine management. Marine litter accumulation has become a growing concern worldwide and European countries are among the first ones to ring the alarm.
LAMARCA results will be useful for local authorities that are in charge of marine litter management.
Highlighting the areas of marine litter accumulation, but also providing knowledge that would help to extend the results to other zones not specifically studied in this proposal.
Providing an operational tool for studies an decision-making that require the modelling of the motion and evolution of drifted particles/objects (biological, physical particles, litter) in the ocean.