Science of the Total Environment 738 (2020) 139901

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Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

Influential factors on microplastics occurrence in river sediments

Beibei He a, Buddhi Wijesiri a, Godwin A. Ayoko a, Prasanna Egodawatta a,
Llew Rintoul b, Ashantha Goonetilleke a,⁎
a
Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), P.O. Box 2434, Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia
b
Institute for Further Environments, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), P.O. Box 14 2434, Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• Role of catchment and sediment charac-

teristics in microplastics in river sedi-
ments
• Bayesian Networks modelling to evalu-
ate microplastics occurrence in river
sediments
• Land use, population exert greater im-
pact on microplastics type not concen-
tration
• Clay particles influence microplastics
concentration in river sediments

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Rivers are regarded as sinks and pathways of plastic pollutants from terrestrial environments to various other
Received 14 April 2020 aquatic systems such as lakes and oceans. Although extensive research has been conducted in recent years on
Received in revised form 31 May 2020 microplastic pollution in river sediments, knowledge on the relationships between potential influential factors
Accepted 31 May 2020
such as catchment characteristics and sediment properties, and microplastics occurrence in river sediments, is
Available online 02 June 2020
still considered an under-researched area. This study evaluated the influence of land use, population, and sedi-
Editor: Damia Barcelo ment particle size on the presence of microplastics abundance and types. Based on a Bayesian Network modelling
approach to characterise the correlations between influencing factors and microplastics occurrence, it was evi-
Keywords: dent that microplastics type had a positive correlation with different land use types and population. Catchment
Microplastics characteristics were found to play a more important role in influencing microplastics type than microplastics
Catchment characteristics concentration. A statistically significant positive relationship was observed between microplastics concentration
Sediment properties and clay particles which suggested that the occurrence of microplastics in sediments can be impacted by the
River sediments presence of clay particles.
© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Microplastic pollution has been reported across various aquatic sys-

⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: beibei.he@hdr.qut.edu.au (B. He),
b.mahappukankanamalage@qut.edu.au (B. Wijesiri), g.ayoko@qut.edu.au (G.A. Ayoko),
p.egodawatta@qut.edu.au (P. Egodawatta), l.rintoul@qut.edu.au (L. Rintoul),
a.goonetilleke@qut.edu.au (A. Goonetilleke).
tems worldwide including lakes (Anderson et al., 2016; Boucher et al.,
2019; Xiong et al., 2018), rivers (He et al., 2020a, 2020b; Yan et al.,
2019), ponds (Bordos et al., 2019), estuaries (Ramírez-Álvarez et al.,
2020; Richard et al., 2019) and oceans (Avio et al., 2015; Li et al.,
2016) in recent years. Past studies confirm that river sediments act

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139901
0048-9697/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2 B. He et al. / Science of the Total Environment 738 (2020) 139901
not only as sinks for microplastics retention, but also as a medium for
microplastics transportation along rivers to oceans (Andrady, 2011;
Avio et al., 2017). Despite the fact that extensive research has been un-
dertaken on the abundance, spatial distribution patterns, sources of or-
igin, and potential adverse impacts of microplastics (Horton and Dixon,
2018; Wright et al., 2013), there is limited understanding of the role of
catchment characteristics and sediment properties on the distribution
of different types of microplastics in river sediments.
Past studies on microplastic pollution date back to 2004 with reports
of the presence of small plastic particles in the marine environment
(Thompson et al., 2004). Since then, the concentrations of different
microplastic debris, fragments, films and pellets in aquatic environ-
ments have been identified (Dris et al., 2015; Velzeboer et al., 2014).
As typical and widely used materials which play a prominent role in var-
ious aspects of daily necessities, plastic pollutants such as polyethylene
(PE) and polypropylene (PP), which are the most widely used polymers
in single-used packaging materials (Geyer et al., 2017), plastic bags
(Eerkes-Medrano et al., 2015), personal care products (Fendall and
Sewell, 2009), textiles (Browne et al., 2011), are considered to be
strongly associated with population and urbanisation characteristics
(Gatidou et al., 2019; Lechner et al., 2014; Nel et al., 2017; Peng et al.,
2018; Yan et al., 2019; Yonkos et al., 2014). Terrestrial anthropogenic
activities are thus considered as the main source which releases plastics
to aquatic environments (Horton and Dixon, 2018), via wastewater dis-
charge, sewer system leaks, stormwater runoff, and prevailing wind
(Anderson et al., 2016; Eriksen et al., 2013). Abundance of microplastics
in lakes, rivers, estuaries, and beaches worldwide have been docu-
mented in highly populated areas or areas with intensive anthropogenic
activities (Horton et al., 2017). Such studies include, Canada (Anderson
et al., 2016), China (Peng et al., 2018; Xiong et al., 2019; Yan et al., 2019),
Italy (Fischer et al., 2016), Germany (Klein et al., 2015), Portugal
(Rodrigues et al., 2018), and UK (Vaughan et al., 2017).
Microplastic particles can float in water bodies due to their low den-
sity after being discharged into aquatic environments. However, after
microorganisms accumulation (Lagarde et al., 2016), microplastics on
the water surface can be drawn down into the deep water column
Fig. 1. Sampling locations along the Brisbane River.
and even deposited in sediments (Ballent et al., 2012). Sedimentary
microplastics could be either transported together with sediments, or
resuspended and transported by hydraulic forces (Ballent et al., 2016).
Such vertical and horizontal movements suggest that sediment particles
can serve as carriers of microplastics (Horton and Dixon, 2018). This re-
sults in various distribution patterns of microplastics together with sed-
iment particle transportation behaviour. However, such combined
effects of catchment characteristics and sediment properties on
microplastics presence has not been investigated in-depth so far,
which constrains the assessment of environmental risk of microplastic
pollutants in aquatic environments.
This paper provides insights into the relationships among land use,
population, sediment properties, and microplastics. The outcomes of
this study will enhance the knowledge base on how these influential
factors contribute to the occurrence and transportation of microplastics
in river sediments. Such understanding will guide environmental risk
management and critical decision-making relating to source tracking,
and transportation monitoring of microplastic pollutants in river
systems.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area and sample collection
This study was conducted in the Brisbane River, Queensland,
Australia. Brisbane River is the longest river in Southeast Queensland,
travels 344 km from Mount Stanley, flows through Brisbane City and
into Moreton Bay, and enters the Pacific Ocean (Straughan, 1972). Trib-
utaries and creeks discharge into the Brisbane River, including Six Mile,
Goodna, Woogaroo and Bulimba Creek. Brisbane River catchment has
wet summers and dry winters. The catchment encompasses various
land use types and urbanisation levels including agricultural (AGR),
commercial (COM), industrial (IND), natural (NAT), and residential
(RES) land uses.
Fig. 1 shows the selected twenty-two sampling points from up-
stream (S1-S3) to middle stream (S4–S11) and downstream (S12–
 B. He et al. / Science of the Total Environment 738 (2020) 139901
S22) which covered different land uses along the Brisbane River,
namely, S1–S3 mostly natural land (forest), S4–S12 moderately resi-
dential and natural land area, S13–S18 highly urbanised and commer-
cial area, S19–S22 highly industrialised and marina area. Sediment
samples on the surface layer (0–3 cm) from the centre of the river
were collected using a Ponar Stainless-steel Grab Sampler, in December
(summer) 2017 and March (autumn), June (winter), and September
(spring) 2018, respectively. Accordingly, a total of eighty-eight sedi-
ment samples were collected. All the collected sediment samples were
stored in pre-labelled 250 mL glass jars, transported on ice to the labo-
ratory and stored below −20 °C until further analysis. Sample handling
was done in accordance with Australia/New Zealand Standards.
The geographic location of each sampling site was recorded by GPS
(Garmin Etrex 10 GPS). Catchment characteristics data such as different
land use areas at each sampling site was obtained from Queensland Spa-
tial Catalogue website, and data manipulation was performed using
ArcGIS software. Resident population (POP) in the selected river section
associated with each sampling site in Brisbane River catchment was ob-
tained from census data reported by the Queensland Government
Statistician's Office (Liu et al., 2017).
2.2. Laboratory analyses and data generation
Pre-experimental study was done using NaCl with density of
1.2 g/mL, NaI solution with density of 1.5 g/mL, and ZnCl2 1.6 g/mL to
extract virgin microplastic particles. Optimum separating results was
obtained using the ZnCl2 extraction method. Therefore, in this study,
microplastics in the collected sediment samples were extracted using
ZnCl2 solution with a density of 1.6 g/mL, and then filtered by vacuum
filtration (MF Membrane Filters, 0.45 μm HA). After extraction, all
suspected particles on the filter were further identified by Fourier
Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (Nicolet iS50 FT-IR) instrument at
4 cm-1 resolution and 64 scans. In this step, the spectra-matching rate
of the tested particles was compared with polymer spectra database
to obtain accurate results of the suspected particle types. Polymer parti-
cles account for 90% of all the materials remaining on the filters. All
identified microplastic particles were then photographed using a Leica
M125 Metallographer, and weighed using an Analytical XSE 105DU an-
alytical balance with an accuracy of 0.01 mg (He et al., 2020a, 2020b). To
avoid false negative and/or positive results for microplastic extraction,
various measures such as pre-experiments, laboratory blanks and
non-plastic tools were used as part of the quality control and quality as-
surance procedures.
Malvern Mastersizer 3000 analyser, which utilises a laser diffraction
technique to measure particles sizes ranging from 0.01 μm to 3.5 μm
based on percentage volume distribution of particles, was used to deter-
mine the particle size distribution of the sediment samples. Appropriate
sediment sample quantity was added to the dispersion unit of the
Malvern Mastersizer 3000 instrument to obtain an obscuration value
of around 7% as recommended in the user manual. The volume-based
particle size distribution of the collected sediment samples for each
sampling site was derived accordingly. For quality control and quality
assurance purposes, laboratory blanks and a minimum of 10% of all sam-
ple replicates were analysed.
2.3. Data analysis
2.3.1. Statistical analysis
The data set of microplastics concentration and microplastics type
was initially analysed using descriptive statistical methods to under-
stand the spatial distribution patterns of microplastics in river sedi-
ments. Multivariate statistical technique, namely, principal component
analysis (PCA) was then applied to investigate the relationships
among land uses, population, sediment properties and microplastics oc-
currence. To avoid the influence of different variable scales on the out-
comes, the original data set was pre-processed prior to the PCA
3
analysis using mean centering and standardising to eliminate the influ-
ence of different variable scales. The data analysis was performed using
IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 and Origin 2019.
2.3.2. Bayesian networks (BNs) modelling
Followed by qualitative PCA, a quantitative analysis was undertaken
using BNs modelling (Wijesiri et al., 2019) to further investigate how
catchment characteristics and sediment properties influence the total
concentration of microplastics in sediments along the Brisbane River.
Fig. 2 depicts the BNs model that describes the microplastics concentra-
tions based on the influence of catchment characteristics, population,
and sediment properties. Further details on BNs modelling can be
found in the Supplementary Information.
3. Results
3.1. Variability of microplastics distribution in river sediments
Fig. 3 shows the spatial distribution patterns of microplastics in river
sediments for the four different sampling episodes. High microplastic
concentrations were observed at the beginning of the summer season
(December), decreased in the late summer period (March) with the ex-
ception of site 4 (which is attributed to the fragmentation of large plas-
tic items). In the following winter season from June to September, an
increasing pattern of microplastic concentrations was observed. Addi-
tionally, as observed in Fig. 3, the hotspots of microplastic concentra-
tions (S4, S10–S12, S15, S20) were found to be associated with
different land uses including residential, industrial, commercial and nat-
ural (forest) land.
The percentage of each microplastics type is given in Fig. 4, and an
increasing pattern of microplastics types can be observed from S1 to
S22. Polyethylene (PE) was the primary plastic type in upstream sites
which encompass natural land. Residential lands are abundant in the
midstream area, where PE was the dominant microplastic type,
followed by polyamide (PA) and polypropylene (PP). Most microplastic
types were observed in the downstream area, which consists of a range
of land uses including residential, commercial, and industrial.
3.2. Relationships between microplastics and influential factors
Land use type and population were initially investigated to assess
how these factors are correlated in terms of microplastics concentration
and type. The resulting PCA biplot is shown in Fig. 5. Microplastics con-
centration was observed to have no correlations with some land uses
Fig. 2. Graphical representation of Bayesian Networks (BNs) model of microplastics
concentration in sediments.
4 B. He et al. / Science of the Total Environment 738 (2020) 139901

Fig. 3. Spatial distribution of microplastics in Brisbane River sediments.

(natural and agriculture), and weak inverse correlations with the others
land uses (commercial, residential, and industrial) and population.
However, microplastics type shows a strong positive correlation with
different land use types and population.
Based on the significance associated with particle size distribution,
collected sediment samples were characterised for five different size
ranges, namely, clay (b0.002 mm), silt (0.002–0.063 mm), fine sand
(0.063–0.20 mm), sand (0.20–0.63 mm), and coarse sand (N0.63 mm)
to investigate the influence of particle sizes of sediments on
microplastics presence. The data on each sediment particle size of
each sampling site can be found in Fig. S2 in the Supplementary Infor-
mation. Fig. 6 shows the resulting PCA biplot of microplastics

Fig. 4. Spatial variation of different microplastic types in Brisbane River sediments.

 B. He et al. / Science of the Total Environment 738 (2020) 139901
Fig. 5. PCA biplots of microplastics and catchment characteristics. (Note: AGR –
agricultural land use, COM – commercial land use, IND – industrial land use, NAT –
natural land use, RES – residential land use, POP – population).
concentration related to various sediment particle sizes. According to
Fig. 6, clay particles show a relatively stronger correlation with
microplastics concentration, as the angle between microplastics and
clay particles is more acute compared to the other vectors.
3.3. Interdependencies among microplastics, catchment characteristics and
sediment properties
Table 1 gives the estimated BNs model parameters that describe the
relationships among microplastics, land uses, population, and sediment
properties. The performance of the BNs model was deemed satisfactory
as evident from the results of the overall model F-test (p-value b0.01,
see Table 1) and Fig. 7. As evident from Table 1, microplastics concentra-
tion shows a statistically significant negative relationship (conditional
regression coefficient – −10.267, p-value b0.05) with industrial land
use. While highly related to commercial, natural, and agriculture land
Fig. 6. PCA biplots of microplastics and sediment properties. (Note: CL – clay content, CO –
coarse particle content, FI – fine particle content, SA – sand content, SI – silt content).
5
uses, which is evident from the strong positive relationship observed
(conditional regression coefficient – 5.074, 4.052, and 3.817, see
Table 1). In terms of sediment particles, a statistically significant positive
relationship (conditional regression coefficient – 2.402, p-value b0.01)
is observed between microplastics concentration and clay particles. In-
terestingly, coefficient index of the relationship between microplastics
concentration and sediment particle sizes decreases with the increasing
particle sizes (see Table 1).
4. Discussion
4.1. Influence of catchment characteristics on microplastics occurrence
Studies on microplastic pollution, both in the water column and sed-
iments suggest that microplastic concentration and type are strongly
linked to urbanisation (Ballent et al., 2016; Eriksen et al., 2013). How-
ever, our results indicate that land use and population have a relatively
greater impact on microplastics type rather than microplastics concen-
tration. This could be explained by the role of hydrologic conditions
such as water flow velocity in regulating microplastics distribution pat-
terns after being discharged to rivers (Carson et al., 2013). Microplastics
accumulation in aquatic environments has been reported as linearly re-
lated to seasonal precipitation events (Carson et al., 2013). The climatic
condition of Brisbane River catchment is sub-tropical with distinct wet
summer and dry winter seasons. The intensive storm events during
summer are expected to result in more frequent transportation and
mobilisation of microplastics together with sediments. Consequently,
lower accumulation of microplastics can be expected in the summer
season in Brisbane River sediments, especially at the end of the summer
season (March) (Fig. 3).
Moreover, the downstream section of rivers is expected to have
higher concentration of microplastic pollutants due to the transport of
microplastics by water flow (Ballent et al., 2016). However, the spatial
distributions of microplastics concentration along Brisbane River did
not show a consistent pattern of increase or decrease for the four differ-
ent sampling episodes (see Fig. 3). The pattern of spatial variation of the
hotspots of microplastics indicates that not all microplastics are likely to
be transported from upstream to downstream (He et al., 2020a, 2020b).
It is evident that there is a statistically significant negative relationship
between microplastics concentration and industrial land use (see
Table 1), as the industrial area is in the downstream part of the Brisbane
River catchment, namely, from SP 19 to SP 22. Since part of the
microplastics load can be retained in the upstream sediments through
deposition due to the changes in hydrodynamic forces, it is thus a lesser
amount of microplastics that would be accumulated in the downstream
area (Besseling et al., 2017). Consequently, understanding the differ-
ences in the concentration and type of microplastics could thus be sug-
gested as an approach to source tracking of microplastic pollutants
(Duis and Coors, 2016; Horton and Dixon, 2018).
Brisbane River is subjected to diverse sources of terrestrial pollution
inputs. Although S1-S3 in the upstream section is mostly natural land,
plastics that are carried from the upstream can make a considerable
contribution to microplastic pollutants at the sampling sites. PE is the
dominant microplastic type in upstream sediments as shown in Fig. 4.
This can be caused by the wide use of PE products (Blettler et al.,
2018; Horton and Dixon, 2018), which accounts for 70% of all
microplastic pollutants in Brisbane River sediments (He et al., 2020a,
2020b). Residential land is the main land use in the midstream area.
Plastics originating from daily usage, such as microbeads from cosmetics
products (Napper et al., 2015), nylon fibres from clothes (Browne et al.,
2011), are commonly discharged to waterways via sewage effluent and
sewer system leakages (Browne et al., 2010). Additionally, runoff con-
taining microplastics from a variety of domestic waste sources can be
transported to water bodies (Gatidou et al., 2019). PE, PP, and PA in
downstream sites could either originate from upstream transportation
or inputs from downstream sites while other microplastic types such
6 B. He et al. / Science of the Total Environment 738 (2020) 139901

Table 1
Estimated conditional regression coefficients for the Bayesian Networks (BNs) model of microplastics concentration as a function of catchment characteristics and sediment properties
(Gaussian distribution, log transformed data). Note: AGR – agricultural land use, COM – commercial land use, IND – industrial land use, NAT – natural land use, RES – residential land
use, POP – population, CL – clay content, CO – coarse particle content, FI – fine particle content, SA – sand content, SI – silt content.

Response variable Predictor variables

Catchment characteristics Sediment properties

Population (POP) Standard deviation of residuals
Microplastic AGR COM IND NAT RES CL CO FI SA SI
3.817 5.074 -10.267* 4.502 −0.751 1.215 2.402** 0.480 4.698 1.828 4.007 0.353

Conditional density: Microplastic | AGR + CL + CO + COM + FI + IND + NAT + POP + RES + SA + SI.
Leave-one-out cross validation.
Significance codes: ** 0.01 * 0.05.
Overall model p-value (F-test): 0.00543 (b0.01).

Fig. 7. Performance of the Bayesian Networks (BNs) model for total concentration of microplastics: (a) Observed vs Predicted; (b) Residuals.

as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and polyvinylidene fluoride
(PVDF) in sediments can be primarily attributed to industrial effluent
or stormwater runoff from the surrounding industrial areas (Nizzetto
et al., 2016).
According to the study by Carr et al. (2016), most current wastewa-
ter treatment plants though effective at removing a high percentage of
microplastics, are not able to fully remove microplastics from the waste-
water stream. Additionally, due to the differing density of various
microplastics materials which could be either the result of manufactur-
ing properties or biofilm accumulation (Wu et al., 2017; Zettler et al.,
2013), the sedimentation and resuspension processes can vary for dif-
ferent microplastic types. Therefore, further research is needed to eval-
uate the transportation and deposition characteristics under different
hydrodynamic conditions of flow.
Richard et al., 2019), enhance the degradation of large plastic fragment
into smaller plastic debris (da Costa et al., 2016) and lead to changes in
the settling velocities and settling processes of microplastics (Kowalski
et al., 2016). Consequently, the interaction and adsorption between set-
tled microplastics and sediment particles are likely to be changed. How-
ever, due to the very limited number of published studies and the lack of
comprehensive data sets on the interactions between the distribution
and transport of microplastics and other potential influential factors
(such as flow velocity, wind, and sediment clays), further in-depth in-
vestigations are needed to derive a detailed understanding of the depo-
sition and transportation mechanics between different sediment
particle types and microplastics.
5. Conclusions

4.2. Influence of sediment properties on microplastics transport
The occurrence of microplastics in sediments can be impacted by the
sinking/floating behaviour of different sediment particles due to the
mechanical forces between clays and microplastic particles
(Chubarenko et al., 2020). The positive relationships between
microplastics concentration and clay fraction found in this study suggest
that the deposited microplastics are expected to have similar dynamics
as clay sediment particles in relation to the transport processes. How-
ever, Li et al. (2019), showed that there is limited influence of small
suspended particles (b10 μm) on the microplastics settling process.
This can be explained by the different degradation levels of the surveyed
microplastics. Once released into the aquatic environment, the interac-
tions between plastics and bio/abiotic factors (such as the presence of
microorganisms, UV radiation) are expected to weaken the molecular
structure and alter the density of plastics (Chubarenko et al., 2020;
Despite the fact that microplastics pollution in aquatic environments
is increasingly being detected worldwide, there is lack of understanding
regarding the influential factors in relation to microplastics occurrence
and prevalence in river environments. The research outcomes highlight
the correlations among the factors that potentially influence
microplastics occurrence. Land use was observed to be highly correlated
with microplastic types, while weakly correlated with microplastics
concentration. This suggests that land use is the major contributor to
microplastics type rather than to microplastics concentration. There-
fore, prudent land use planning and management can reduce the inputs
of specific types of microplastics, especially polymers which are
manufactured using highly hazardous chemical compounds. Addition-
ally, the study outcomes have identified the decreased coefficient
index between microplastics abundance and sediment particles with in-
creased sediment grain size. The outcomes indicate that finer the sedi-
ment clays, the more abundant are microplastics. The study outcomes
 B. He et al. / Science of the Total Environment 738 (2020) 139901
provide new insights for further research regarding the interaction be-
tween the sinking/floating behaviour of different sediment particles
and microplastics occurrence.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Beibei He:Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Formal
analysis, Writing - original draft.Buddhi Wijesiri:Methodology, Formal
analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.Godwin A.
Ayoko:Conceptualization, Supervision, Methodology, Formal analysis,
Writing - review & editing.Prasanna Egodawatta:Supervision, Formal
analysis.Llew Rintoul:Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation.
Ashantha Goonetilleke:Conceptualization, Supervision, Methodology,
Formal analysis, Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
The authors are thankful to Queensland University of Technology
(QUT) and China Scholarship Council (CSC) for providing a scholarship
to the first author to undertake this study. Our sincere gratitude goes to
the Institute for Future Environments QUT, which operates the Central
Analytical Research Facility (CARF) where the data reported in this pa-
per was derived. Access to CARF is supported by generous funding from
the Science and Engineering Faculty, QUT.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139901.
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