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A global dataset of soil microplastics (2005-2026)
Summary
Scientists have combined nearly 6,200 soil microplastic measurements from over 4,900 locations in 49 countries into one standardized global database, making it easier to compare pollution levels across different studies and regions. This matters because microplastics in soil can end up in the crops we eat and the water we drink, and having consistent, comparable data is a crucial first step toward understanding how widespread this contamination really is and what it might mean for our health.
This dataset provides a harmonized global compilation of published soil microplastic records from 2005 to 2026. It contains 6,197 records from 4,901 sampling sites across 49 countries. The dataset includes publication information, geographic coordinates, sampling information, soil properties, microplastic abundance, particle-size ranges, shape categories, polymer types, and methodological metadata such as pretreatment procedures and identification instruments. The dataset consists of two linked tables, an information table and a characteristics table, both indexed by a unique record ID to enable cross-referencing. The information table contains site- and sample-level metadata, including bibliographic information, harmonized land-use classification, geographic coordinates, sampling depth, soil physicochemical properties, and reported microplastic abundance. Where applicable, abundance values are standardized to items kg⁻¹, and a size-distribution-based correction factor (CF) is applied to account for differences in particle-size detection ranges across studies. The CF is derived from an empirical power-law relationship describing microplastic particle-size distributions, which is used to adjust abundance estimates to a consistent size range. The characteristics table provides detailed compositional information on microplastics, including particle size distribution, shape composition, and polymer composition. These variables are expressed as proportional contributions across standardized categories, with expanded columns representing the full distribution of each attribute. Together, the two tables integrate environmental context with particle-level characteristics, enabling harmonized analyses of soil microplastic abundance and composition across studies. This dataset (in xlsx formats) is associated to the "A global dataset of soil microplastics (2005–2026)" by Wu et al. (2026). Manuscript citation: Wu, P., Su, Y., Wang, M., Yang, X., Rillig, M.C., Wang, X., Liu, R., Ye, S., Zhou, L., Shi, Z., Chen, S. In preparation. When using the data, please cite repositories as well as the original manuscript.For any questions on the data, please contact Dr. Songchao Chen (chensongchao@zju.edu.cn).