The occurrence and abundance of microplastics in surface water and sediment of the West River downstream, in the south of China

Microplastic pollution has aroused great concern in inland waters. Freshwater is the transport routes and potential sources for plastic fragments to the oceans. However, information especially about the occurrence of microplastics in freshwater systems is unclear in certain key areas. This work studied the distribution and characteristics for microplastics in the downstream area of West River. Both sediment and surface water detected microplastics with abundance ranging from 2560 to 10,240 items/kg and 2.99 to 9.87 items/L, respectively. Small size (<0.5 mm) and fiber were the main size and type in both surface waters and sediments. Polypropylene, polyethylene, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride and polyethylene terephthalate were the polymer types of microplastics, as identified using a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. In addition, findings here might be in consideration of studying about the distribution of microplastics and the degree to which they were influenced by the use of land. In descending order, the highest microplastics abundance was observed in commercial/public/recreational > residential > industrial > natural areas. Our results indicate the occurrence of high abundance microplastics in river impacted by human activities, and suggest that spatial distribution of microplastics varies between different land use areas.