A traffic-informed screening framework for prioritizing tire and road wear particle monitoring and mitigation in the Delaware River Basin.

Authors

Zhi Li, Yicheng Huang, Ning Sun, Zhuoran Duan, Mark Wigmosta, Zhaoqing Yang, Benjamin Maurer

Published in

Journal of environmental management. Pages 131126. Nov 02, 2026. Epub Nov 02, 2026.

Abstract

Tire and road wear particles (TRWPs) are traffic-derived contaminants generated continuously on road surfaces and delivered to streams episodically by stormwater runoff. Direct TRWP measurements remain too sparse in most river basins to calibrate predictive concentration models, yet managers must decide where to monitor, when to sample, and where mitigation is likely to be effective. This study presents a distributed hydrologic particle-transport screening framework for TRWP/TWP prioritization in the Delaware River Basin. The framework combines Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT), road-network connectivity, 90 m hydrologic routing, and 3-h particle-transport simulations for water years 2011-2018. Because published source factors depend strongly on whether they represent total tread mass, an airborne particle fraction, or a specific vehicle class, model output is interpreted as a source-scenario and relative-priority indicator rather than a validated estimate of absolute in-stream concentration. The reference scenario uses a 51.1 mg vehicle-km^-1 passenger-car total-wear factor and identifies the lower-basin urban corridor near Philadelphia and Wilmington as the strongest source-connectivity convergence zone. In the WY2018 reference scenario, modeled indicators at the Lower Delaware outlet are one to two orders of magnitude larger than those at the Upper Delaware outlet. A representative October 2017 event illustrates how dry-weather buildup followed by runoff-generating rainfall can create candidate storm-recession sampling windows. Multi-year monthly patterns identify fall and late-winter to early-spring as candidate monitoring periods, while turbidity records indicate that conventional sediment indicators should not be used as standalone TRWP proxies. The framework translates sparse traffic, hydrologic, and water-quality information into testable monitoring and mitigation priorities.

PMID:
42971904
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 03 Nov 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.