Evidence Reviews on Analysis, Prevalence & Impact of Microplastics in Freshwater Environments

The project will be commissioned as a package of three related evidence reviews on certain aspects of microplastics in the freshwater environment with the objective to summarise our current knowledge;  Systematically review the range of current sampling and analytical methodologies used to detect, characterise and quantify microplastics in the freshwater environment and provide a balanced assessment on the robustness/quality of the data from these;  Identify and assess the current understanding in relation to which types of microplastics are prevalent in freshwater systems and the transportation, fate and biological effects of these materials;  Describe the gaps in our current knowledge with the aim of providing future direction for research to further our understanding of microplastics in the environment and the impact of microplastics on animal and plant life in freshwater environments.