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Can Microplastic Pollution Change Soil-Water Dynamics? Results from Controlled Laboratory Experiments
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Researchers conducted controlled laboratory experiments examining how microplastic shape and concentration affect soil water-holding capacity and evaporation in fine sand, finding through statistical and non-parametric analyses that microplastic pollution at environmentally relevant concentrations significantly altered both hydrological parameters.
Current knowledge about the potential impacts of microplastics (MP) on vadose zone hydrology is scarce. The primary goal of this study was to address some of the limitations of previous research by developing more reliable and conclusive statistical evidence to better understand whether MP pollution can potentially cause hydrological impacts. We examined the effects of MP shape (type), as well as the magnitude of pollution (MP/soil mass ratio, λ) on water holding capacity (WHC) and bare soil water evaporation (ER) of fine sand, under controlled laboratory conditions. Three different shapes (types) of MP—fiber (polyacrylic), strand (polymethyl methacrylate), and pellet (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), with six environmentally relevant MP concentration levels (MP/soil mass ratio), all ≤1.5%, were studied. Statistical regressions and non-parametric analyses of variance (i.e., Kruskal–Wallis analysis) indicate that MP pollution has a substantial potential to change WHC and late-stage evaporation, even at relatively low MP concentrations, but has minimal impacts on early stage evaporation of the studied fine sand. The magnitude of the impacts depends on individual MP shape (type) and concentration, connoting those MP impact mechanisms are complex. These findings suggest that the global issue of growing soil–MP pollution should be regarded as a concerning environmental and water resources stressor that could potentially cause widespread environmental change by altering soil-water dynamics at the watershed scale.
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