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Microplastics in Soils and Sediments: a Review of Characterization, Quantitation, and Ecological Risk Assessment
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Researchers reviewed current methods for detecting and measuring microplastics in soils and sediments, identifying a lack of standardized protocols as a key barrier to comparing findings across studies. The review calls for urgent development of consistent methodologies to better assess the true scale of microplastic pollution in land environments.
This study presents a comprehensive review of the characterization, quantification, and ecological risk assessment of microplastics (MPs) in soils and sediments. MPs, defined as plastic particles of size smaller than 5 mm, have been less studied in these environments compared to aquatic ecosystems. Broadly, all analytical methods include the following steps: sampling, extraction, polymer identification, and quantitation/particle counting. This review highlights the variation in current methodologies for sampling, extraction, and quantification of MPs, which hinders data comparison across studies. This poses a real challenge to compare the data of various studies. Hence, there is an urgency to develop standardized methodologies for analyzing MPs in different environmental matrices. Spectroscopic techniques such as FT-IR and Raman are the most widely used techniques for polymer identification. Adopting proper quality control and quality assurance measures will improve the reproducibility and comparability of results. This review calls for further research on MPs’ effects on soil and sediment environments to inform standardization efforts and improve our understanding of MPs pollution.
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Microplastics in Soils and Sediment: Sources, Methodologies, and Interactions with Microorganisms
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Microplastics in soils and sediments interact with microorganisms in complex ways, affecting microbial community structure and facilitating the spread of antibiotic resistance genes. These interactions highlight that microplastic pollution poses ecological risks beyond physical contamination, potentially disrupting soil health and agricultural systems.
Microplastics in Soils and Sediment: Sources, Methodologies, and Interactions with Microorganisms
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Researchers reviewed the sources, measurement methods, and ecological interactions of microplastics in soils and sediments, highlighting that terrestrial plastic pollution is substantial and poorly understood, and that microplastics in soil can affect microbial communities in ways that may ripple through food webs and nutrient cycles.
Microplastics in Soils and Sediments
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Researchers examine the distribution, persistence, and ecological impacts of microplastics in soils and sediments, documenting their effects on agricultural productivity, soil ecology, and food security as a globally recognized biosphere hazard driven by human activity.
Microplastics in Terrestrial Soils: Occurrence, Analysis, and Remediation
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Researchers reviewed how microplastics from synthetic polymers have spread throughout terrestrial soils globally, examining detection methods and emerging remediation strategies for a pollutant that now persists in farmlands and natural soils alike.
Review of microplastics in soils: state-of-the-art occurrence, transport, and investigation methods
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This review synthesizes sampling, pretreatment, and analytical methods for detecting microplastics in soil environments, noting that research has largely focused on contamination levels rather than behavioral dynamics and ecological impacts. The authors call for standardized testing protocols and predictive behavior models as microplastic accumulation in agricultural soils increasingly threatens food safety and ecosystem health.
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