Microplastic pollution in water environment of typical nature reserves and scenery districts in southern China

Han Gong; Ruixue Li; Feng Li; Lijie Xu; Lu Gan; Jingxian Li; Haisheng Huang; Muting Yan; Jun Wang

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166628

Microplastic pollution in water environment of typical nature reserves and scenery districts in southern China

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Dec 10:903:166628. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166628. Epub 2023 Aug 26.

Authors

Han Gong¹, Ruixue Li¹, Feng Li¹, Lijie Xu², Lu Gan³, Jingxian Li¹, Haisheng Huang¹, Muting Yan⁴, Jun Wang⁵

Affiliations

¹ College of Marine Sciences, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China.
² College of Biology and the Environment, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.
³ College of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.
⁴ College of Marine Sciences, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China. Electronic address: marineymt@scau.edu.cn.
⁵ College of Marine Sciences, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China. Electronic address: wangjun2016@scau.edu.cn.

PMID: 37640084
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166628

Abstract

Microplastics were frequently detected in the ocean, freshwater environment and wastewater treatment plants. This study aims to fill up the knowledge gap of microplastic distribution in nature reserves and scenery districts. Microplastic samples were collected, the distribution characteristics were analyzed with a stereoscopic microscope and a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer, and the ecological risks of microplastic pollution were calculated. Microplastics were detected in all the collected water samples and the average abundances of microplastics in the surface water of eleven investigated nature reserves and scenery districts ranged from 542 to 5500 items/m³. The degrees of microplastic pollution of all the surveyed nature reserves and scenery districts were classified as hazard level I. Fiber microplastics represented the largest average proportion (67.4 %) and 91.7 % of the detected microplastics were smaller than 2 mm. Corresponding to the frequent detection of fiber microplastics, cotton was the most abundant (25.5 %) polymer type of the suspected microplastics, followed by polyamide (PA, 20.6 %), polyester (PET, 17.0 %), and cellulose (15.6 %). For the ecological risk of the microplastic polymers, six, two and three nature reserves and scenery districts were defined to be at hazard level I, II and III, respectively. In brief, microplastic pollution occurred in all the surveyed nature reserves/scenery districts and posed different degrees of ecological risks.

Keywords: Microplastic; Nature reserve; Pollution; Risk assessment; Scenery district.