{"id":10253,"date":"2019-09-11T09:40:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T07:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cienciagandia.webs.upv.es\/?p=10253"},"modified":"2019-09-11T09:39:18","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T07:39:18","slug":"a-pioneering-upv-research-study-reveals-high-levels-of-microplastics-in-the-southern-gulf-of-valencia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cienciagandia.webs.upv.es\/en\/2019\/09\/a-pioneering-upv-research-study-reveals-high-levels-of-microplastics-in-the-southern-gulf-of-valencia\/","title":{"rendered":"A Pioneering UPV Research Study Reveals High Levels of Microplastics in the Southern Gulf of Valencia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nuria Felis<\/a>, under the supervision of the Campus Gandia professors Silvia Falco<\/a> and Miguel Rodilla<\/a>, has conducted the first study on microplastic density the southern area of the Gulf of Valencia<\/a><\/strong> in her Master’s Thesis for the Masters Program in Environmental Assessment and Monitoring of Marine and Coastal Ecosystems of the Universitat Polit\u00e8cnica de Val\u00e8ncia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The results of this study indicate a higher concentration of microplastics at the mouths of the J\u00facar and Serpis rivers<\/strong>, with an average of 329,500 items per square kilometer. This figure indicates a high level of contamination of these compounds<\/strong>, similar to that of other areas of the Mediterranean, although with a somewhat better situation than the one known in the so-called “Plastic Island”, located in the northern Pacific turn.<\/p>\n

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Nuria Felis in the laboratory at Campus Gandia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To identify and quantify them, Felis has taken samples of the marine surface layer of ten sectionst <\/strong>that are perpendicular to the 54-kilometer segment of the Valencian coast that goes from Cullera to Denia<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Thanks to this study, significant differences between the density of microplastics have been discovered in the Serpis and Marenyet area (south of the mouth of the J\u00facar), with an average of over 900,000 items per square kilometer, compared to areas such as Piles and Oliva Nova, which have an average density close to 100,000 items per square kilometer<\/p>\n

Felis points out that 66% of microplastics from the degradation of macroplastics<\/strong> have been found, which would point to a connection between their presence at sea and contamination from larger plastics.<\/p>\n