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Unveiling the impact of anthropogenic wastes on greenhouse gas emissions from the enigmatic mangroves of Indian Sundarban

The Science of The Total Environment 2025 2 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count.
Nilanjan Das, Soumyadip Pal, H. S. Ray, Suman Acharya, Sudipto Mandal

Summary

Researchers developed a dynamic model to simulate greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O) from Indian Sundarban mangroves under the influence of anthropogenic waste inputs including heavy metals and microplastics. Both heavy metals and microplastics were identified as significant drivers of elevated GHG emissions from mangrove soils, with CO2 being most sensitive to microplastic impact on microbial respiration.

The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the mangrove ecosystem due to climate change have been an emerging environmental issue in the present scenario. However, the GHGs, emitted through anthropogenic causes in these vulnerable regions are often neglected. The level of soil pollution has increased due to the uncontrolled disposal of wastes from ports, ferry services, plastics, and metals, emitting huge amounts of GHGs. Here, a novel dynamic model on GHG emission was proposed for the simulation of carbon dioxide (CO), methane (CH), and nitrous oxide (NO) emissions using R programming language, where, anthropogenic and environmental drivers were considered. The CO emission was sensitive to HM (impact rate of heavy metals on microbial respiration process) and MP (impact rate of microplastics on microbial respiration process). The CH dynamics was sensitive to HM (impact rate of heavy metal on methanogenesis process) and MP (impact rate of microplastics on methanogenesis process) and the NO pool was sensitive to NO dif rt. (NO diffusion rate). Fish waste, heavy metals, and microplastics are the prime emitters of GHG in the Sundarbans. Control and monitoring of plastics, fish wastes, and heavy metals, and strategic implementation of no-plastic or no-waste zones in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) would ensure solutions to the present problem.

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