Microplastics in Surface Waters and Sediments from Guangdong Coastal Areas, South China

Sustainability

Han Gong¹  Yizheng Li¹  Yindan Zhang¹  Kaihang Xu¹  Jun Wang¹  Guanglong Chen¹  Muting Yan¹  Kai Huang² 

[1] Joint Laboratory of Guangdong Province and Hong Kong Region on Marine Bioresource Conservation and Exploitation, College of Marine Sciences, South China Agricultural Universtiy, Guangzhou 510641, China;National Engineering Research Center for Non-Food Biorefinery, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Bio-refinery, Guangxi Academy of Sciences, 98 Daling Road, Nanning 530007, China;

关键词: Guangdong coastal area;    microplastics;    water;    sediment;    anthropogenic activities;    risk assessment;   

DOI  :  10.3390/su13052691

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Microplastic is an emerging global pollutant that have attracted a great deal of attention from researchers and the public. Guangdong Province has a large population and a relatively well-developed economy, but lacks a modern pollution control system. Guangdong has a long coastline with varying levels of pollution, and little research has been conducted on microplastics. Therefore, we investigated the level of microplastic pollution in coastal areas of Guangdong Province, and the abundance of microplastics in surface waters and sediments at 13 sampling sites. The abundance of microplastics in surface water and sediment samples ranged from 850 to 3500 items/L and 433.3 to 4166.3 items/kg, respectively. Fiber is the main type of microplastics in both surface water and sediment. The sampled microplastics were typically transparent. Raman results show that the surface water sample mainly includes rayon (38.2%), polyethylene terephthalate (16.4%), and ethylene/vinyl acetate copolymer (12.7%). This study used the pollution load index method to evaluate the pollution risk of microplastics along the coast of Guangdong, and provided the basis for the formulation of environmental policy.

【 授权许可】

Unknown