The article “Fate and transport of fragmented and spherical microplastics in saturated gravel and quartz sand” written by Ahmad Ameen, Margaret E. Stevenson, Alexander K. T. Kirschner, Stefan Jakwerth, Julia Derx and Alfred P. Blaschke was published in the Journal of Environmental Quality.

Microplastics are a growing global concern and can infiltrate into groundwater. Weathering and degradation in the environment cause some microplastics to be fragmented. Contamination of groundwater and drinking water resources is especially susceptible to the smaller, fragmented particles. This article considers the fate and transport of fragmented versus spherical microplastics in various types and sizes of saturated porous media.

The article “Transformer Versus LSTM: A Comparison of Deep Learning Models for Karst Spring Discharge Forecasting” written by Anna Pölz, Alfred Paul Blaschke, Jürgen Komma, Andreas H. Farnleitner and Julia Derx was published in Water Resources Research.

Karst springs are important drinking water resources. This study examines the use of Deep Learning models such as Transformers and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) models to predict spring discharge up to 4 days ahead using hourly data from Austrian karst springs. The models use variables such as rainfall, electrical conductivity, temporal information, and discharge data to forecast discharge dynamics in karst systems.