Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION
Volume 235, Issue -, Pages 899-906Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2017.12.081
Keywords
Remote lake; Plastic debris; Tourism; Lake current; Weathering
Categories
Funding
- Jiangsu Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [BK20151146]
- National Key Research and Development Program [2016YFC0600905]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [51575513, U1510205]
- Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD)
- State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology [2016FBZ11]
- Joint Research Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Qinghai Lake National Natural Reserve
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Microplastic pollution was studied in China's largest inland lake Qinghai Lake in this work. Micro plastics were detected with abundance varies from 0.05 x 10(5) to 7.58 x 10(5) items km(-2) in the lake surface water, 0.03 x 10(5) to 0.31 x 10(5) items km-2 in the inflowing rivers, 50 to 1292 items m(-2) in the lakeshore sediment, and 2 to 15 items per individual in the fish samples, respectively. Small microplastics (0.1-0.5 mm) dominated in the lake surface water while large microplastics (1-5 mm) are more abundant in the river samples. Microplastics were predominantly in sheet and fiber shapes in the lake and river water samples but were more diverse in the lakeshore sediment samples. Polymer types of microplastics were mainly polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) as identified using Raman Spectroscopy. Spatially, microplastic abundance was the highest in the central part of the lake, likely due to the transport of lake current. Based on the higher abundance of microplastics near the tourist access points, plastic wastes from tourism are considered as an important source of microplastics in Qinghai Lake. As an important area for wildlife conservation, better waste management practice should be implemented, and waste disposal and recycling infrastructures should be improved for the protection of Qinghai Lake. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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