Floating islands project launched to combat pollution in Marmara Sea tributaries
BURSA
As part of efforts to combat marine mucilage in the Marmara Sea, a project involving the placement of floating islands to tributaries feeding the sea has been launched in the western province of Bursa’s Karacabey district.
Initiated in cooperation with the Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Ministry, Bursa Uludağ University and the Demirtaş Organized Industrial Zone (DOSAB), the project will deploy 250 floating plant islands on the Çapraz Stream, one of the tributaries feeding the Marmara Sea.
The floating islands, covering a total of 2,400 square meters, are designed to biologically absorb nitrogen and phosphorus, two key pollutants contributing to mucilage. If successful, the model will be extended to all tributaries in the region.
Menderes İşçen, head of Water and Soil Management at the Ministry, emphasized that the core focus since the mucilage outbreak in 2021 has been reducing the nitrogen and phosphorus load entering the Marmara.
“Of the 22-point action plan we published, 19 actions are complete, one is near completion, and two remain progress,” he said. These include upgrading domestic wastewater treatment plants to advanced biological systems and addressing agricultural runoff.
İşçen noted that despite legal mandates passed in 2022 requiring municipalities to convert treatment plants within three years, significant progress has not been made. “The deadline is June 15, but many municipalities have yet to comply,” he added.
Uludağ University instructor Ayşegül Akpınar, who led the initial pilot study in 2021, stated that the project targets pollutants using six different plant species and includes 120,000 plants in total. “We believe this offers a meaningful purification model,” she said.
