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Linking microplastic characteristics to phosphorus and metal cycling in dam-affected sediments
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Researchers studied river sediment near the Three Gorges Dam before and after water was impounded, looking at microplastics alongside phosphorus and metals. They found that microplastic color, size, and shape, but not amount, were linked to phosphorus and metal levels, and that dam-related water changes affected how these substances related to each other.
Microplastic pollution in ecosystems and its effects on other pollutants have attracted great attention in recent years globally. However, the changes in microplastics in sediments under fluctuating water level conditions and their intrinsic relationships with chemically important elements in the environment (phosphorus and related metal elements) remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the concentration variations of and relationships among microplastic characteristics (abundance, shape, color, and size), phosphorus forms (labile P and stable P), phosphorus cycle-related metals (K, Ca, Na, Mg, Al, Fe, and Mn) and reactive metal oxides (Mg(ox), Al(ox), Fe(ox), and Mn(ox)) in the sediments of the Gaoyang backwater area, a tributary of the Pengxi River, before and after the impoundment of the Three Gorges Dam. The study results showed that the dam impoundment process resulted in the reorganization of microplastic characteristics, metals, and phosphorus forms in the tributary sediments. Mechanistically, the reversal of the Fe–MP size correlation before and after impoundment suggests that redox-driven changes in Fe speciation, together with water-level-fluctuation-induced hydrodynamic sorting, modulate the coupling between MP traits and sedimentary phosphorus and metals. The color, size, and shape of microplastics, rather than their abundance, were significantly correlated with phosphorus fractions and crustal metal concentrations in the sediments before and after impoundment. Crustal metals and their reactive oxides were also closely associated with endogenous phosphorus cycling in the sediments. The results of this study help to understand the relationship between changes of microplastic characteristics, nutrients, and metals in the tributary sediment-water system under different impoundment states of the Three Gorges Dam. The study also supports future systematic evaluations of the environmental chemical behavior of microplastics in the ecosystem.
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