{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,19]],"date-time":"2026-04-19T04:45:07Z","timestamp":1776573907183,"version":"3.51.2"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,17]],"date-time":"2026-04-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1776384000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100021823","name":"Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["RUS-19\/0001"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["RUS-19\/0001"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100021823","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"award":["RUS-19\/0001"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["RUS-19\/0001"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/026gmbh11","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100005416","name":"Research Council of Norway","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["342628\/L10"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["342628\/L10"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100005416","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["342628\/L10"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["342628\/L10"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/00epmv149","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Water"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Rivers are a key pathway for the transport of plastics into the ocean. Studies of plastic pollution in Arctic rivers remain limited due to the inaccessibility of sampling sites and work in extreme weather conditions. This work presents the results of a three-year (2019\u20132021) survey of floating large microplastics (0.5\u20135 mm) and meso\/macroplastics (&gt;5 mm) in the Northern Dvina River, an actively navigated river that drains a densely populated region into the White Sea. Sampling was conducted during the ice-free periods (May\u2013October) along a \u223c3.5 km transect using a Neuston net, providing a multi-year dataset spanning three ice-free seasons. A critical methodological advancement was the calculation of plastic river\u2013sea flux using the discharge of the sampled surface layer (upper 20 cm), which constitutes only \u223c3% of the river\u2019s total discharge, rather than the total discharge itself. Observed microplastic concentrations (average 0.003 items m\u22123) were low compared to many European rivers, and lower than those reported in the adjacent Barents and Kara Seas. Microplastic abundance was significantly lower during the high-water season than during the low-water season, which resulted in practically no seasonal variability in microplastic fluxes from the river to the White Sea (average 0.3 items s\u22121). A notable finding was that in some cases, meso\/macroplastics outnumbered microplastics by item count, underscoring the river\u2019s role as a significant source of larger plastic debris. A geospatial assessment of Arctic rivers\u2019 pollution potential was performed, using socio-economic indicators such as near-delta population density and port activity. This study identified the Northern Dvina River as a major contributor of microplastics among the Arctic rivers.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/w18080955","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,17]],"date-time":"2026-04-17T16:30:36Z","timestamp":1776443436000},"page":"955","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Plastic Pollution in an Arctic River: A Three-Year Study of Abundance, Mass, and Flux from the Northern Dvina to the White Sea"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0054-0483","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Svetlana","family":"Pakhomova","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Norwegian Institute for Water Research, \u00d8kernveien 94, 0579 Oslo, Norway"}]},{"given":"Anfisa","family":"Berezina","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Akvaplan-NIVA, Department of Environments, \u00d8kernveien 94, 0579 Oslo, Norway"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7313-5665","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Igor","family":"Zhdanov","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Shirshov Institute of Oceanology RAS, 36 Nakhimovsky Prosp., Moscow 117997, Russia"}]},{"given":"Natalia","family":"Frolova","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Land Hydrology, Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University, GSP-1, Leninskie Gory, Moscow 119991, Russia"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7442-3311","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ekaterina","family":"Kotova","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Shirshov Institute of Oceanology RAS, 36 Nakhimovsky Prosp., Moscow 117997, Russia"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5008-9611","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Evgeniy","family":"Yakushev","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Norwegian Institute for Water Research, \u00d8kernveien 94, 0579 Oslo, Norway"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"768","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1260352","article-title":"Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean","volume":"347","author":"Jambeck","year":"2015","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"GESAMP (2016). 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