You want to do something for the rivers and cleanup some dirt but do not know where to begin? Check out and contribute to our pollution map! With the help of our monitoring protocol based on citizen science you can put polluted areas on our map and also find polluted spots nearby to clean them! Currently there are no standard methods and consistent data available on plastic pollution of rivers in the Danube Basin that would help harmonized actions of citizens and other relevant actors. By using the Trasouh application and following our video guides, you can easily leave a mark on the map. The map now works on the whole Danube River Basin covering its main rivers. At first glance the pollution map is not more than a visualization of the biggest plastic deposits along these rivers. However, it provides many additional features, the most important of which is the so-called Garbage Report function. Suppose you are interested in the biggest macroplastic deposits along the river Bodrog in Slovakia. All you have to do is to choose ‘Slovakia’ from the drop-down menu in the top left corner and select the tag ‘Bodrog’ in the middle section. In the downloaded database you will find references about the exact location, size and other characteristics (composition, accessibility, etc.) of the given sites.

References

Molnár AD, Málnás K, Bőhm S, Gyalai-Korpos M, Cserép M, Kiss T. (2024) Comparative Analysis of Riverine Plastic Pollution Combining Citizen Science, Remote Sensing and Water Quality Monitoring Techniques. Sustainability. 16(12):5040. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16125040