About Joana Mira Veiga

Joana Mira Veiga is a marine biologist, specialised in marine pollution and working on the topic of marine litter since 2010, particularly at the science-policy interface. She coordinates the Plastics Team within Deltares.

Her role in Deltares projects mostly focus on supporting policy development, through informative monitoring design and knowledge-based, integrated assessments. She is a strong promoter of the concept of “source-to-sea”, linking marine plastic litter with waste prevention and management, as well as the pathways through which plastics enters the marine environment. This holistic approach combines and integrates data with different Deltares software, modelling and simulating leakages, transport and fate of plastic into or in the freshwater and marine environments.

Joana has contributed to the first European-funded projects on the topic (MARLISCO, 2012-2015; and CleanSea, 2013-2015) and two studies for the European Commission, with a special focus on reduction targets and policy measures to prevent most common types of marine litter, targeting different sectors of society. Within Deltares she has recently led a World Bank project that estimated a national baseline of discharges of plastic waste from land-based sources into the sea for Indonesia; and a Europe-wide integrated assessment of marine plastic litter, from “source-to-sea”, produced to the European Environment Agency. She has also supported the development of a toolkit for assessments of plastic pollution in the ASEAN region; an initiative in Indonesia to detect plastic waste in rivers via remote sensing funded by the European Space Agency; and the litter removal European pilot project MAELSTROM.