Particulate Plastics in Terrestrial and Aquatic Environments

Dr Nanthi Bolan completed his PhD in Soil Science and Plant Nutrition at the University of Western Australia, and is currently working as a Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Newcastle. His teaching and research interests include contaminant assessment and remediation, nutrient and carbon cycling, pollutants interactions in soils, greenhouse gas emission, soil remediation, and waste management. Nanthi is a Fellow of American Soil Science Society, American Society of Agronomy and New Zealand Soil Science Society, and was awarded the Communicator of the Year award by the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural Sciences. He has supervised more than 40 postgraduate students and was awarded the Massey University Research Medal for excellence in postgraduate students’ supervision. He has published more than 300 journal papers, and edited 4 books, and was awarded the M.L. Leamy Award in recognition of the most meritorious contribution to soil science.Professor M.B. Kirkham is a professor in the Department of Agronomy at Kansas State University and a graduate of Wellesley College (BA) and the University of Wisconsin, Madison (MS and PhD). Professor Kirkham’s research deals with water movement in the soil-plant atmosphere continuum and uptake of heavy metals by plants grown on contaminated soil. Professor Kirkham has written three textbooks dealing with soil-plant-water relations and is the author or coauthor of more than 300 contributions to scientific publications and is on the editorial boards of 14 journals. Professor Kirkham is on the executive committee of the International Union of Soil Sciences and has received recognitions including being named fellow of five societies and elected honorary member of the International Union of Soil Sciences.Dr. Claudia Halsband is a marine ecologist with a PhD from the Universities of Paris (France) and Oldenburg (Germany) focusing on zooplankton life histories. She is currently working as a senior scientist at Akvaplan-niva, a private research institute in Tromsø (Norway), focusing on arctic environmental issues. She has expertise in zooplankton community structure and function, life history traits, reproductive cycles and trophic interactions. Recent interests include anthropogenic impacts on zooplankton communities through climate change, ocean acidification and microplastics pollution. She has published >30 journal papers and is a former EU Marie-Curie postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Yong Sik Ok is Full Professor in the Division of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Korea, where he also serves as Director of the Korea Biochar Research Center. His positions include Adjunct Professor at the University of Wuppertal, Germany, Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia, Guest Professor at China Jiliang University, China and Guest Professor at Ghent University Global Campus, Ghent University, Belgium. Prof. Ok holds B.S. (1998), M.Sc. (2000) and Ph.D. (2003) from the Division of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering, Korea University, Seoul. Prof. Ok was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Canada and held Visiting Professorships in the Department of Renewable Resources (University of Alberta), in the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering (Ghent University), in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (Hong Kong Polytechnic University) and in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (National University of Singapore).

Particulate Plastics in both Terrestrial and Marine Ecosytems: Sources. Characteristics. Distribution. Particulate Plastics as Vectors of Heavy Metals. Vectors of Organic Pollutants. Vectors of Microorganisms. Ecotoxicity of Particluate Plastics. Pathways of Plastics Reaching the Human Food Chain. Case Studies