Abstract
Microplastic contamination is an emerging issue in the marine environment including the Arctic. However, the occurrence of microplastics in the Arctic fjords remains less understood. Sample collections were conducted by trawling horizontally in surface water (0–0.4-m depth) and trawling vertically in the water column (0–200-m depth) to investigate the abundance, composition, and distribution of microplastics in the Rijpfjorden, Northern Svalbard, in the summer of 2017. Laser Direct Infrared chemical imaging technique was applied for the counting and identification of microplastic particles. A total of 1010 microplastic particles and 14 mesoplastics were identified from 41,038 particles in eight samples from the Rijpfjorden. The abundance of microplastics larger than 300 µm was 0.15 ± 0.19 n/m3 in surface water, and 0.15 ± 0.03 n/m3 in the water column of the Rijpfjorden. The microplastic particles identified in Rijpfjorden water consisted of 10 types of polymers. The dominant microplastics are polyurethane, polyethylene, polyvinyl acetate, polystyrene, polypropylene, and alkyd varnish. Historical ship activities and newly melted sea ice might be major sources of microplastics in the seawater of Rijpfjorden. In general, contamination of microplastics larger than 300 µm in Rijpfjorden water is at a low level in comparison to other polar waters. Further research is needed to confirm the origin and fate of microplastics below 300 µm in Arctic fjords.
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All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information files) and available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Prof. Haakon Hop (the chief scientist onboard) at the Norwegian Polar Institute, the crew, and participants of the KR 2017 expedition with RV Lance for assistance. Thanks should be also given to Mr. Yanyan Wang and Yubo Li at Tongji University, and Miss Jingjing Wang at the Agilent Technologies, Inc. for their help on sample preparation and instrumental analysis.
Funding
This work is supported by the National Key Research and Development Project of China (2019YFC1408201) and the PLASTPOLL project of Research Council of Norway (275172) and the international cooperation project of the Yellow River Station of China’s Arctic Research Expedition in 2017.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Mengrong Bao: investigation, data curation, visualization, writing—original draft; Qinghui Huang: conceptualization; methodology; investigation; writing—original draft; writing—review and editing; Zhibo Lu: investigation design, methodology, funding acquisition; France Collard: data curation, methodology, writing—review and editing; Minggang Cai: writing—review and editing; Peng Huang: investigation; Yong Yu: project administration; Shuiping Cheng: supervision; Lihui An: instrumental analysis; Anette Wold: investigation, writing—review and editing; Geir Wing Gabrielsen: writing—review and editing; funding acquisition.
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Bao, M., Huang, Q., Lu, Z. et al. Investigation of microplastic pollution in Arctic fjord water: a case study of Rijpfjorden, Northern Svalbard. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 56525–56534 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19826-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19826-3