How mangrove plants affect microplastic distribution in sediments of coastal wetlands: Case study in Shenzhen Bay, South China

Duan, Jiehan; Han, Jie; Cheung, S.G.; Chong, Richard Kong Yuen; Lo, Chuiman; Lee, Fred; Xu, Steven Jing-Liang; Yang, Yang; Tam, Nora Fung-Yee; Zhou, Haichao

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144695

Cited by 111 publications

(28 citation statements)

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“…This difference is related to the fact that above ground structures such as aerial roots (e.g., pneumatophores) of mangroves can reduce wave energy during immersion and act as a filter to trap marine litter, 23 which also promotes the settlement of plastics. 36 However, our result from TK indicated that tidal flats buried more MP than do mangroves (p < 0.05). The narrow tidal flats in TK may not reduce the wave energy efficiency, and the sediment grain size in LWM and TF is finer than MF (Table S2), which may also increase the deposition of MP.…”

Section: ■ Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 58%

Contribution of Microplastics to Carbon Storage in Coastal Wetland Sediments

Chen

Lee

2021

Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett.

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The ubiquitous occurrence of microplastics in coastal habitats is widely reported. As an anthropogenic material with high carbon content, the contribution of microplastics to the coastal sediment carbon stock is still unassessed. Here, we report the occurrence pattern of microplastics (20–2000 μm) and estimate their contribution to the carbon stock in different coastal sediments in Hong Kong, a metropolis in the Pearl River estuary and part of the Greater Bay Area with a population of 70 million. Our data reveal that microplastics are more concentrated in the surface sediment and in vegetated coastal sediments. We also estimate that at present carbon from microplastics contributes between 0.001% and 1.197% to the sediment carbon pool at different depths. Despite the low contribution, microplastics have already made a hidden contribution to the coastal sediment carbon stock. Our data help to establish a baseline for future contributions of microplastics to total carbon storage in peri-urban coastal sediments.

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Section: ■ Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 58%

Contribution of Microplastics to Carbon Storage in Coastal Wetland Sediments

Chen

Lee

2021

Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett.

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“…• Area: About 10,000 km 2 (Bangladesh: 6,017 km 2 and India: 4,260 km 2 ) (Lebreton et al, 2017): about 1.7 × 10 −8 tonnes plastic/ha-yr Root and sediment within mangroves are efficient at trapping plastics, while root features i.e., density, thickness and height can influence the plastic accumulation and dispersion in the mangroves (Duan et al, 2021). Stationary plastic in forest fringe or sediment can hamper oxygen penetration within the rhizosphere and therefore, create an anoxic condition and subsequently can cause mangrove suffocation (Smith, 2012) leading to pneumatophore deformation or low growth (van Bijsterveldt et al, 2021).…”

Section: Figure 1 | (A)mentioning

confidence: 99%

World's Largest Mangrove Forest Becoming Plastic Cesspit

Adyel

Macreadie

2021

Front. Mar. Sci.

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Plastic is considered as hazardous waste (Rochman et al., 2013) and planetary transboundary pollution (Villarrubia-Gómez et al., 2018;Tessnow-von Wysocki and Le Billon, 2019). Plastics in different forms-including marine litter, plastic debris, meso-plastics, and microplastics-are now ubiquitously distributed in the environment (Jambeck et al., 2015;Napper and Thompson, 2020). The world's largest single mangrove forest, the UNESCO Marine World Heritage-listed Sundarbans between Bangladesh and India, is under immense threat of plastic pollution. A Ramsar site and a Class 3 Tiger Conservation Landscape of global priority for endangered and flagship species Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris)-the Sundarbans, is historically threatened by many challenges, like over-exploitation, commercial farming and development activities, climate change-induced hazards, and natural disasters (Sen, 2019;Mukul et al., 2020).Bangladesh and India, the benefit and management sharing countries of the Sundarbans, are ranked among the top twelve mismanaged plastic waste (herein also "plastics") generating nations (Jambeck et al., 2015) and are discharging plastic waste downstream through rivers and coasts (Figure 1A) making the Sundarbans a cesspit for plastic waste. Moreover, this mangrove is formed and modified by the super confluence of the world's 15th longest river Brahmaputra/Jamuna, along the transboundary rivers Ganges/Padma and Meghna. These rivers are among the top ten global plastic waste carriers, transporting over 72,000 tonnes of plastics annually before emptying into the Bay of Bengal (Schmidt et al., 2017). A recent study estimated that the combined flows of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers can discharge up to 3 billion pieces of microplastics per day into the Bay of Bengal (Napper et al., 2021). Moreover, all the river systems in Bangladesh and India discharge about 4 million tonnes of plastic waste to the Bay of Bengal per annum. The Sundarbans Bangladesh has 177 rivers receiving water from three main rivers and flowing through it to the Bay of Bengal (Banglapedia, 2012) making the Sundarbans as a basin for the long-term accumulation of plastic waste. If current business as usual trend of 2015 and consumer demand for plastic increases with economy continue, Bangladesh and India can generate about 3 and 52 million tonnes of plastics, respectively by 2060 (Figures 1B,C) (Lebreton and Andrady, 2019).The Bay of Bengal is the largest bay in the world and several littoral countries including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand uses its resources. Different river systems of these countries also release plastics to the Bay of Bengal (Figure 1D). Rivers are key vectors for transporting plastics to oceans and bays (Lebreton et al., 2017;Meijer et al., 2021). The discharge of plastics from the littoral countries around the Bay of Bengal is projected to increase up to 5-times by 2025 compared to that of 2010 (Jambeck et al., 2015). Data-driven mechanistic and Plastics-to-Ocean (P 2 O) models indi...

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“…Of which the very first study was conducted along seven mangrove habitats of Qinzhou Bay (Li et al 2018). Afterwards, a total of 55 mangrove habitats of China including Futian, Maowei Sea, Pearl River Estuarine, Beibu Gulf, and Jinjiang Estuarine region were detected to be MP-contaminated (Li et al 2019(Li et al , 2020a(Li et al , 2020bZhou et al 2020;Zuo et al 2020;Deng et al 2020;Zhang et al 2020;Duan et al 2021). Though the dominant type of MPs varies from region to region, polypropylene (PP) contributes more towards the overall MP pollution of Chinese wetlands and fiber being the most abundant shape.…”

Section: Evidence Of Mps In Mangrove Wetlands Around the Worldmentioning

confidence: 99%