Abstract
Recently, the environmental microplastic pollution has aroused wide interdisciplinary attentions. However, the occurrence of microplastics in agricultural soils is rarely understood, especially in eastern China. In this work, the occurrence and characteristic property of microplastics in agricultural soils in Anhui province, which is situated in eastern China, was investigated for the first time according to the density separation and filtration method. The concentration of microplastic in agricultural soils varied from 0.66 to 17.66 (103 kg−1 dry soil), and the fiber (~ 55.1%), film (~ 34.7%) were the main types in farmland soils. In addition, the small size (250 ~ 500 µm) was the dominant size of microplastics in agricultural soils in Anhui province. The concentration of microplastics was closely related to geographical location and planting patterns. Meanwhile, the types of microplastics were polystyrene (PS), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Finally, the environmental risk of microplastics in farmland soil in Anhui Province was evaluated. The overall risk index of farmland soil microplastics in Anhui Province was less than 1000, and the content of soil microplastics was high, but the overall risk level was low.
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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Funding
The study was supported by Graduate Innovation Fund of Anhui University of Science and Technology (2022CX2003), Supported by the Opening Foundation of Anhui Province Engineering Laboratory of Water and Soil Resources Comprehensive Utilization and Ecological Protection in High Groundwater Mining Area (No.2022-WSREPMA-03), Institute of Energy, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center (Grant nos. 21KZS217), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant nos. 41977307), (Grant nos. 51772285, 21473170, and 51878004), and the Natural Science Fund of Anhui Province (Grant nos. 1808085ME139).
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Jianhua Ge: writing-original draft, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition; Xue Ren: investigation; Zhou Wei: investigation, formal analysis; Wan Zhang: investigation, formal analysis; Hao Wen: validation.
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Highlights
1. Microplastics (MPs) were investigated in the farmland soils of Anhui province for the first time.
2. The concentration of MPs in the farmland soils of Anhui province ranged from 0.66 to 17.6 × 103 items/kg.
3. Fiber and small size (0.25 ~ 0.5 mm) were the primary shape and size in agricultural soils of Anhui province.
4. The abundance of MPs in agricultural soils of Anhui province is closely related to the agricultural cropping practices and climatic conditions.
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Ren, X., Ge, J., Wei, Z. et al. The Occurrence and Characteristics of Microplastic Pollution in the Agricultural Soils of Anhui Province, in Eastern China. Water Air Soil Pollut 234, 485 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-023-06507-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-023-06507-1