Journal of Cleaner Production 318 (2021) 128537

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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

Characterising microplastic pollution in sediments from urban water

systems using the diversity index
Qin Fang a, Siping Niu a, *, Jianghua Yu b
a
Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Energy and Environment, Anhui University of Technology, Anhui, 243002, China
b
Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and
Pollution Control (AEMPC), Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Handling editor; Bin Chen As microplastic pollution (MP) is currently attracting worldwide attention, the characterisation of microplastics
(MPs) in terms of pollution level, sources and migration is of great importance. In the present work, both the
Keywords: Simpson diversity index (SDI) and Shannon-Wiener index (SWI) were used to study the MPs present in the
Microplastics sediments from urban water systems including two lakes (Yushan lake and Nan Lake) and two rivers (Yushan
Microplastic diversity
River and Yongfeng River) from Ma’anshan City in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The abundance of MPs
Migration
in sediments ranged between 5 and 153 items⋅kg− 1 with high spatial variation depending on the site. MPs
Physical morphology
Sediments detected in the urban water system were dominated by film (69.8%) in shape, transparent (36.4%) in colour,
<1000 μm (50.1%) in size, and Polyethylene (PE, 43.3%) and Polypropylene (PP, 35.5%) in composition. Whilst
previous studies have used the diversity of MPs to analyse MP in marine environments, this work aims to obtain
the diversity information of MPs in urban areas. The diversity indices of polymer, shape, colour and size were
0–0.685, 0–0.578, 0–0.810 and 0–0.816 for SDI, respectively, and 0–1.255, 0–0.935, 0.1.710 and 0–1.748 for
SWI, respectively. Pearson analysis indicates a significant correlation between the number of land-use types and
the diversity index of MPs (r = 0.507–0.935, p < 0.05 for SDI; r = 0.528–0.857, p < 0.05 for SWI). Additionally,
an attractive fitting relationship between SDI and SWI (p < 0.001) was observed in MP analysis. This means that
either of the SDI and SWI can be employed for the analysis of MP. Sites where the urban water system flows into
the Yangtze River had a higher abundance of MPs (96 ± 66 items⋅kg− 1) than the urban water system (33 ± 30
items⋅kg− 1) (t = − 2.727, p = 0.01), implying that MPs tend to accumulate after they enter the Yangtze River from
the urban water system.

1. Introduction
With the wide use of synthetic polymers, mismanaged plastic debris,
combined with very slow degradation rates (Sun et al., 2020), directly or
indirectly became an environmental hazard (Bagheri et al., 2020; Chen
et al., 2021). Among plastic particles of various sizes, those with a size
<5 mm are generally defined as microplastics (MPs) (Thompson et al.,
2004; Bakir et al., 2014; Kutralam-Muniasamy et al., 2020). MPs are of
potential threat to the ecosystem (Besseling et al., 2017). The adverse
effects of MPs on a variety of organisms, including zooplankton (Amin
et al., 2020), shrimp (Rezania et al., 2018), shellfish (Ding et al., 2020a),
fish (Ding et al., 2018) and whales have been documented. Once
ingested by the organisms, MPs can translocate to different tissues and
remain for long periods of time in the body and even transfer through
the food chain (Wright et al., 2013; Rochman, 2016; Corcoran et al.,
2020). Moreover, MPs can be the vessels of toxic chemicals like hy­
drophobic organic pollutants (Wang et al., 2020a) and heavy metals
(Gao et al., 2019) in the environment, potentially increasing the
ecological risk of MPs (Wardrop et al., 2016).
MPs are present ubiquitously in aquatic systems (He et al., 2021).
MPs in freshwater environments are mainly attributed to plastic waste
(directly or indirectly discharged), effluent from wastewater treatment
plants (WWTPs) (Cheung and Fok, 2017), stormwater runoff, fishing
and shipping (Chen et al., 2021; Lasee et al., 2017; Windsor et al., 2018).
In water environments, MPs can sink into the sediments by a series of
physical or biological effects (Galloway et al., 2017). It is believed that
urban freshwater sediments are a reservoir for land-based MPs and even
the source of marine MPs (Peng et al., 2017a).

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: sipingniu@126.com (S. Niu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128537
Received 11 January 2021; Received in revised form 10 July 2021; Accepted 2 August 2021
Available online 10 August 2021
0959-6526/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Q. Fang et al.
Usually, the morphology of MPs governs their environmental
behaviour (Wang et al., 2018). For instance, due to their large surface
areas, small MPs associate largely with caustic materials (Lambert and
Wagner, 2016). The shapes of MPs can influence the uptake in grass
shrimp (Gray and Weinstein, 2017) and the type of polymer can affect
MPs’ risks to organisms (Li et al., 2020b). In the literature, abundance
and number proportion of the microplastic pollution (MP) in the envi­
ronment have mostly studied in terms of the physical morphology
(colour, size, and shape) and material components (e.g., PE, PP, PET, PS
and EPDM) (Wang et al., 2019; Bagheri et al., 2020). It is recognised that
MPs with differ colour, size, shape and polymer gather in one place like a
biological community (Wang et al., 2019; Li et al., 2020a). As a result,
MPs from a given place also show diversity. Several studies have
attempted to use the Simpson diversity index (SDI) and Shannon-Wiener
index (SWI) to analyse the diversity of MPs (Wang et al., 2019, 2020c;
Chen et al., 2021; Sun et al., 2021), such as at the southwestern coast of
Taiwan (Chen et al., 2021), the South China Sea (Wang et al., 2019) and
coastal zones (Sun et al., 2021). However, the diversity of the physical
morphology and components of MPs, which can mirror the sources of
MPs, has not yet gained significant attention (Helm, 2017; Li et al.,
2020a). In those studies, the diversity of MPs or the relationship be­
tween the diversity of MPs and the number of MPs’ sources has been
reported. However, there still has no information on the use of MPs’
diversity index in the urban area. Meanwhile, the land-based source is
the major contributor of MPs in water environment of urban areas (Peng
et al., 2017a). And, the land-use type may affect the diversity of MPs.
Therefore, it’s necessary to pursue the diversity of MPs from the urban
water system and figure out the effect of land-use type on MPs’ diversity.
Also, the previous studies just choose one of SWI and SDI to determine
the diversity of MPs, whereas the relationship of them has still not been
clear.
The Yangtze River—the largest river in China with a length of 6387
km—has been considered as the main river carrying out plastics into the
ocean (Lebreton et al., 2017; Schmidt et al., 2017). The average abun­
dance of MPs in the sediments from the Yangtze River was found to be
34 items⋅kg− 1 (Xiong et al., 2018), and 3420 ± 1320 items⋅kg− 1 in the
estuary (Zhu et al., 2017). The urban freshwater from the watershed of
the Yangtze River is believed to be the path of MPs moving from urban
area to this river (Xiong et al., 2018). Unfortunately, the information
available is not adequate to figure out the sources and fate of MPs in the
Fig. 1. Location of sample sites.
2
Journal of Cleaner Production 318 (2021) 128537
urban freshwater system.
In the present study, we characterised the MP in sediments of the
urban water system from Ma’anshan City in the lower reaches of the
Yangtze River. The main objectives were to: (1) investigate the abun­
dance, physical morphology, and contamination of MPs from the urban
water system, (2) analyse the migration trends of MPs from the urban
area to the Yangtze River, and (3) quantify and evaluate the diversity of
MPs by using the SDI and SWI, and verify the effect of land-use type on
the MPs’ diversity.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Study area and sampling
Ma’anshan (N 31◦ 46′ 42′′ –31◦ 17′ 26′′ , E 118◦ 21′ 38′′ –118◦ 52′ 44′′ ),
with a total area of 4049 km2, is located in the east of Anhui Province,
China, spanning both sides of the Yangtze River. Yushan Lake (1.32 km2)
and Nan Lake (0.45 km2) are from the downtown area, which are more
likely to be polluted by plastics compared to other lakes. Yushan Lake
links with the Yangtze River by the Yushan River; Nan Lake flows into
the Yangtze River through the Yongfeng River.
In this study, 37 surface sediment samples were collected (Fig. 1) by
Van Veen grab (ETC-200). Site 1–6, Site 7–11, Site 12–19 and Site 20–35
came from Nan Lake, Yushan River, Yongfeng River and Yushan Lake,
respectively. Site 36 and 37 were from the junctions of the Yangtze River
with Yongfeng River and Yushan River in order to predict the migration
of MPs. Once collected, the sediment samples were directly put into
clean self-sealing bags and transported back to the laboratory as soon as
possible (Liu et al., 2019; Peng et al., 2017b). After freezing in the
refrigerator, the samples were freeze-dried at − 50 ◦ C for 36 h by
FD-IA-50 freeze dryer before further analysis.
2.2. Isolation of microplastics
The density of most MPs is between 0.8 and 1.4 g cm− 3, which is
lower than that of sediments (2.65 g cm− 3) (Hidalgo-Ruz et al., 2012).
Therefore, the density separation method was used to isolate MPs from
the sediments. Saturated NaCl solution (1.2 g cm− 3) (Li et al., 2019;
Cincinelli et al., 2021), ZnCl2 solution (1.5 g cm− 3) (Xu et al., 2020), NaI
solution (1.6–1.8 g cm− 3) and Na6O39W12 solution (1.4 g cm− 3)
Q. Fang et al.
(Corcoran et al., 2009) can be selected as the floating reagent. In this
study, ZnCl2–NaCl solution (1.59 g cm− 3) with the mass ratio of distilled
water, NaCl and ZnCl2 as 10:4.6:10 (Wang et al., 2020b) was used to
separate MPs from sediment. 400 g freeze-dried sediments were mingled
with 600 mL of ZnCl2–NaCl solution in a glass beaker, stirred for 5 min
and rested overnight. After kept in a pear-shaped funnel for 12 h, the
supernatant was filtered through 75 μm screen. The flotation operation
was repeated twice to ensure that the MPs were fully separated from the
sediments. The particles trapped on the sieve were transferred into the
beaker with 100 mL distilled water. To degrade the biogenic material
and organic impurities, the materials sieved were treated with 5 mL
HNO3 (65%) and 15 mL H2O2 (30%) (Niu et al., 2021; Wang et al.,
2020b). The residue was filtered through GF/B membrane (Whatman,
0.45 μm) to collect the MPs. Filter paper containing microplastic parti­
cles was then dried to a constant weight. (See Appendix, Fig. S1). In
general, the diluted solution of HNO3 combined with 30% H2O2 ach­
ieved relatively good digestion efficiency, with most polymers not
decomposing significantly (Hurley et al., 2018; Adomat and Grischek,
2020). Moreover, the size of MPs in our study ranged from 200 μm to
5000 μm and the digestion treatment had a small influence on the
concentration of MPs.
2.3. Identification and characterisation of microplastics
After being dried at 50 ◦ C in an oven, the suspected MPs were picked
out according to the hardness, colour, luster and shape of the MPs by
using magnifying glass and stereo-microscope (equipped with a camera
measuring piece, S-EYE). Then, the infrared spectra of suspected MPs
were obtained by FTIR-ATR (Attached Total Reflection Fourier Trans­
form Infrared Spectrometer, Nicolet is50, dual light source, and wave­
length from 400 to 4000 cm− 1). The spectra obtained were compared
with those from the standard database. Those particles having a spectral
match of >70% were regarded to be plastic (Peng et al., 2017a; Sun
et al., 2021) (Figs. S2 and 3).
With the help of a microscope, the physical characteristics of MPs
could be determined. The colour, shape and size of the plastics were
counted by a Nano Measure software. FE-SEM (field emission scanning
electron microscopy, NANO SEM 430) was used to obtain the micro­
graph of the surface of the MPs.
2.4. Quality assurance measures
All equipment used was carefully cleaned with distilled water three
times and sealed for storage before use. The process was carried out in a
clean environment to avoid potential MP in the laboratory. During
sampling and laboratory analysis, all researchers wore nitrile gloves and
cotton-padded clothes. Blanks were analysed to reduce the background
MP. Meanwhile, all samples were counted at least three times to avoid
the error caused by visual inspection and the MPs’ isolation steps were
repeated three times to ensure high accuracy of the research results.
2.5. Data analysis
The abundance of MPs in sediments was expressed in units of item­
s⋅kg− 1 (dried weight). The MPs from four study places were defined as
four communities, and each community was divided into four kinds of
diversity, namely, colour (red, green, blue, white, transparent, yellow,
purple and black), shape (line, film and granule), size (<200 μm,
200–500 μm, 500–1000 μm, 1000–1500 μm, 1500–2000 μm and
2000–5000 μm) and polymers (PP, PE, PET, EPDM, PS, PDMS). The SDI
and SWI were used to assess the diversity of MPs in different regions. SDI
is a comprehensive evaluation of richness and evenness, and SWI can
quantify the level of uncertainty in the system structure, given by:
(1) SDI
3
Journal of Cleaner Production 318 (2021) 128537
∑
S
SDI = 1 − P2i
i=1
(2) SWI
∑
S
SWI = − Pi ln Pi
i=1
as Pi = 0,
∑
S
SWI = − Pi ln(Pi + 1)
i=1
where S is the number of categories and Pi is the proportion of categories
i MPs in total samples. The SDI has a minimum value of 0 and a
maximum value of 1.
The correlation analysis between MPs’ diversity and the number of
land-use types was conducted with SPSS Statistics (version 24.0), and
the t-test (two-tailed) was used to analyse the variation of MPs between
the place where the urban water system enters the Yangtze River and the
urban water system.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Abundance of microplastics in sediments
MPs have been ubiquitously present in the sediments investigated
(Fig. 2). The abundances of MPs in sediments from Nan Lake, Yushan
River, Yongfeng River and Yushan Lake were in the range of 23–90
items⋅kg− 1, 30-70items⋅kg− 1, 5–73 items⋅kg− 1, 3–153 items⋅kg− 1, which
had the averages of 50 ± 26 items⋅kg− 1, 44 ± 18 items⋅kg− 1, 25 ± 23
items⋅kg− 1, 26 ± 12 items⋅kg− 1, respectively. The greatest abundance of
MPs was in the Nan Lake, while the lowest was in the Yongfeng River
(Fig. 2(a)). During the last few years, the government implemented river
dredging on Yongfeng River, reducing the abundance of MPs in sedi­
ments. Nan Lake was located on the west of Hunan Road, which had
high population density, high traffic flow and frequent human activities,
increasing the land-based input of MPs into the lake. The pollution at site
35 of Yushan Lake was the heaviest among all 37 sampling sites (Fig. 2
(b)). This site is close to the prosperous business place of downtown with
some restaurants nearby. The hydraulic condition (i.e. flow rate) of
water streams is an important factor affecting the mobility and sedi­
mentation of MPs in watershed (He et al., 2021; Yang et al., 2021; Rao
et al., 2020). Specifically, a low flow rate is likely to result in the
considerable accumulation of MPs in sediments. As such, a high abun­
dance of MPs was found at sites 11, 16 and 18 that have a low water
velocity, while a low abundance of MPs was found at sites 9, 13, 14, 15
and 19 which have turbulent currents.
Many studies have been carried out on MP in various freshwater
sediments worldwide (Table 1). The level of MP varies greatly
depending on the site, with the highest abundance of MPs in sediments
measured to be 260-11,070 items⋅kg− 1 in the Rhine River (Mani et al.,
2019) with very frequent navigation. Comparatively, the abundance in
this study was lower than Poyang Lake (938 items⋅kg− 1, Jian et al.,
2018), Yangtze estuary (3420 ± 1320 items⋅kg− 1, Zhu et al., 2017) and
Huangpu River (723 ± 306 items⋅kg− 1, Peng et al., 2017a), which can be
mainly attributed to the effective management on plastic litters floating
on the water, ship activities and fishing. Furthermore, there was no
large-scale input of MPs from agriculture.
An obvious increase in the abundance of MPs is found at sites 36 and
37 (96 ± 66 items⋅kg− 1), and a significant difference in the abundance of
MPs from the urban water system (Nan Lake, Yushan River, Yongfeng
River and Yushan Lake) (t = − 2.727, p = 0.01) is observed. This result
means the MPs from the urban water system tend to accumulate in the
sediments after they enter the Yangtze River.
Q. Fang et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 318 (2021) 128537

Fig. 2. Abundances of MPs (a, b) and percentage of polymers detected in sediment (c), Polypropylene (PP), Polyethylene (PE), Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET),
Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer (EPDM), Polystyrene (PS) and Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS).

production and wide utilisation of PP and PE in society. Also, PP and PE

Table 1
were the predominant polymers in sites 36 and 37. However, PS and
Summary of MP in the freshwater sediments worldwide (items⋅kg− 1).
EPDM at sites 36 and 37 were higher than those four places. Therefore,
Site Abundancea Reference PS and EPDM are more likely to occur at the junction of the urban stream
Nan Lake 23–90 This study and the Yangtze River.
Yushan River 30–70 This study
Yongfeng River 5–73 This study
Yushan Lake 3–153 This study 3.3. Physical morphology of microplastics in sediments
Yongjiang River 90–550 Zhang et al. (2019)
Yangtze estuary 3420 ± 1320 Zhu et al. (2017)
Daliao River 100–467 Xu et al. (2020)
The physical morphology of MPs that govern their ecological effects
Shuangtaizi River 67–300 Xu et al. (2020) and environmental behaviour usually differs with their sources. Small
Huangpu River 723 ± 306 Peng et al. (2017a) MPs can not only adsorb pollutants easily but are more likely to get
Wei River 360-1320 Ding et al. (2019) eaten by organisms (Bagheri et al., 2020). Moreover, the risk of MPs is
Poyang Lake 938 Jian et al. (2018)
related to their colour. For example, it is very easy for fish to mistake
Xiangxi River 80–864 Zhang et al. (2017)
Qinghai Lake 50-1292 Xiong et al. (2017) white, transparent, blue and green MPs as their plankton food source
Taihu Lake 11–234.6 Su et al. (2016) (Boerger et al., 2010; Fu et al., 2020). In this study, MPs in the sediments
UK urban lake 250–300 Vaughan et al. (2017) were classified according to their size, colour and shape (Fig. 3).
Midstream of the Rhine River 260 ± 10–11,070 ± 600 Mani et al. (2019) As shown in Fig. 3(a), three shapes of MPs were found as line, film
Gulf of Thailand 150.4 ± 86.2 Wang et al. (2020c)
United States Waterways 162-6110 Wilkens et al. (2020)
and granule. These had average abundances of 20, 28 and 3 items⋅kg− 1
in Nan Lake, 14, 29 and 2 items⋅kg− 1 in Yushan River, 9, 16 and 1
a
, range, mean or mean ± S.D. items⋅kg− 1 in Yongfeng River, and 12, 14 and 0 items⋅kg− 1 in Yushan
Lake. Clearly, MPs with the film shape had the highest abundance with a
3.2. Microplastic polymers in sediments proportion of 69.8%, followed by the line (27.9%) and granular-shaped
MPs (2.4%).
Based on the FT-IR analysis, MPs in the sediments investigated were Meanwhile, there were eight colours of MPs, including red, green,
present with components of Polyethylene (PE), Polypropylene (PP), blue, white, transparent, yellow, purple and black. These had average
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer proportions of 2.0%, 16.0%, 9.8%, 4.9%, 36.4%, 28.3%, 0.2% and 2.4%,
(EPDM), Polystyrene (PS) and Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). As the respectively. Therefore, MPs in the sediments of this study were mainly
main polymers, the proportions of PE, PP, PET, PS were 46.67%, transparent films (plastic bags) and blue lines (fishing lines and fishing
40.17%,11.17%, and 0.83% for Nan Lake, 50.40%, 32.00%, 13.80% and nets). The origin of MPs varied with their colours. Film MPs of white
1.60% for Yushan River, 36.16%, 28.96%, 31.04%, and 1.13% for colour (PP) mainly came from woven bags, while the transparent orig­
Yongfeng River, 43.38%, 38.13%, 17.94% and 0% for Yushan Lake, inated from the breakage of plastic bags.
respectively (Fig. 2(c)). In the study of Zhang et al. (2017), MPs from the MPs from sediments were fractionated into 6 size ranges as <200 μm,
sediments of Xiangxi River were dominant in PP and PE. Moreover, Xu 200–500 μm, 500–1000 μm, 1000–1500 μm, 1500–2000 μm and
et al. (2020) found PE to be the most predominant in the sediments of 2000–5000 μm. The corresponding proportions were 18.8%, 13.2%,
Liaohe estuary. The appearance of this result is due to the high 15.1%, 23.5%, 11.3% and 15.1%, respectively. It can be seen the MPs

4
Q. Fang et al.
Fig. 3. Characterisation of MPs in sediments in terms of shape (a), colour (b) and size (c). The Junction includes sites 36 and 37. (For interpretation of the references
to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
with size <1500 μm were of ubiquitous presence accounting for 73.6%
of the total number.
The proportion of MPs’ physical morphology showed a slight dif­
ference between sites 36 and 37 with the urban water system (Nan Lake,
Yushan River, Yongfeng River and Yushan Lake). Specifically, the pro­
portion of granular MPs (11.7%) was higher than the urban water sys­
tem. Moreover, MPs with size <1000 μm in sites 36 and 37 had an
average number proportion of 63.8%, which is higher than that of Nan
Lake (62.8%), Yushan River (51.5%), Yongfeng River (50.2%) and
Yushan Lake (44.9%). MPs with a small size seem to migrate easily with
the current and accumulate in the sediments from places where the
urban stream goes into the Yangtze River.
Different shapes of microplastic particles exhibited varying surface
morphologies (see Appendix, Fig. S4). MPs detected in the sediment had
rough surfaces with cracks, wrinkles and voids, increasing the specific
surface area of microplastic particles and the surface sorption sites.
Those MPs with rough surfaces were more likely to become the vectors
of environmental pollutants (Qiao et al., 2019; Gao et al., 2019; Ding
et al., 2020b). In sediments, they can combine with the pollutants easily
on their surfaces (Li et al., 2018).
3.4. Diversity of microplastics
The classification of MPs by size, shape, colour and polymer con­
tributes to a better understanding of the diversity of MPs. In the present
study, both SDI and SWI were used to estimate the diversity of MPs on
size/colour/shape/polymer from Nan Lake, Yushan River, Yongfeng
River and Yushan Lake. The diversity indices of polymer, shape, colour
and size were 0–0.685, 0–0.578, 0–0.810 and 0–0.816 for SDI, and
5
Journal of Cleaner Production 318 (2021) 128537
0–1.255, 0–0.935, 0.1.710 and 0–1.748 for SWI (Fig. S5). The lowest
diversity index in the present study was found at Yushan Lake (size: SDI
= 0.480 ± 0.285, SWI = 0.863 ± 0.564; colour: SDI = 0.256 ± 0.220,
SWI = 0.411 ± 0.362; shape: SDI = 0.200 ± 0.206, SWI = 0.307 ± 0.308;
polymer: SDI = 0.497 ± 0.183, SWI = 0.830 ± 0.312) (Table 2), indi­
cating fewer sources of MPs. Compared to the study of Sun et al. (2021),
the SWI of microplastic polymer in this study was lower than Laizhou
Bay (1.84 ± 0.18), Lancelert Reserve (1.59 ± 0.43), S.grandis Reserve
(1.58 ± 0.89) and Jinghai Bay (1.43 ± 0.14). It seems that the diversity
of MPs was lower in urban areas than coastal zones. There are many
rivers linked with these areas, and cities along the coastline have a huge
number of human activities (e.g., salt industry, ship transportation and
mariculture). Interestingly, the site with the highest abundance of MPs
was observed in Yushan Lake (Fig. 2(b)), while it has low MPs’ diversity.
This means that there is no relation between the diversity index and the
abundance of MPs. The correlation analysis shows SDI had a significant
relationship with the SWI in terms of size/colour/shape/polymer
(Fig. S6 and Table 3) (r = 0.980, p = 0.000 for size; r = 0.975, p = 0.000
for colour; r = 0.984, p = 0.000 for shape; r = 0.968, p = 0.000 for
polymer). This means that no matter which one is used, the conclusion is
the same. Therefore, the findings from the previous studies, using one of
SDI and SWI, is reasonable.
3.5. Sources of microplastics in sediments
The sources of MPs have been proven to correspond to their
morphological features and chemical compositions (Wang et al., 2019;
Li et al., 2020a). In this study, the common polymers were PE (42.79%)
and PP (35.02%), which are the materials widely used in various
Q. Fang et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 318 (2021) 128537

Table 2
SDI and SWI of MPs with respect to size, colour, shape and polymera.
Place Size Colour Shape Polymer

SDI SWI SDI SWI SDI SWI SDI SWI

Nan Lake 0.693 ± 0.167 1.386 ± 0.345 0.619 ± 0.067 1.097 ± 0.190 0.411 ± 0.123 0.648 ± 0.139 0.589 ± 0.061 0.988 ± 0.173
Yushan River 0.742 ± 0.044 1.472 ± 0.142 0.535 ± 0.224 1.011 ± 0.434 0.452 ± 0.064 0.698 ± 0.121 0.621 ± 0.034 1.122 ± 0.095
Yongfeng River 0.606 ± 0.280 1.206 ± 0.625 0.535 ± 0.278 0.943 ± 0.580 0.432 ± 0.180 0.641 ± 0.275 0.626 ± 0.036 1.107 ± 0.106
Yushan lake 0.480 ± 0.285 0.863 ± 0.564 0.256 ± 0.220 0.411 ± 0.362 0.200 ± 0.206 0.307 ± 0.308 0.497 ± 0.183 0.830 ± 0.312
a
, mean ± S.D.

Table 3
The correlation between SDI and SWI.
Physical morphology Size Colour Shape Polymer

Parameters r p r p r p r p

Value 0.980 0.000 0.975 0.000 0.984 0.000 0.968 0.000

products. PET was mainly used to produce synthetic textiles, particu­
larly for clothing utilisation. It was found that the transparent and yel­
low film MPs were mainly sourced from plastic bags and food packaging.
Even though the government has banned fishing, there were still some
surreptitious fishermen resulting with the breakage of fishing lines and
nets (Fig. S7). Granular MPs were predominantly derived from the
abrasion of plastic commodities, tier wear and the fragmentation of
foam packaging in transportation.
The land-based source is the major contributor of MPs in water
environment of urban areas due to few ship activities and fishing. Be­
sides, human activities differ with the land-use type. The complex sur­
rounding environment or the land-use type of site will lead to diverse
sources of MPs (Niu et al., 2021; Sun et al., 2021; Su et al., 2020). In
order to determine the influence of land-use type on microplastic di­
versity in the urban areas, a linear regression model was used to gain the
relationship between the number of land-use type and the MPs’ diversity
index (SDI and SWI). Usually, the higher the diversity index value is, the
more extensive the characteristics of MPs are and the more complex the
sources of MPs become (Wang et al., 2019; Li et al., 2020a). In this study,
Yushan Lake was divided into the north, middle and south zones as 3
sites, Nan Lake as one according to the environmental conditions, and all
sites of Yushan River and Yongfeng River were directly used. The
land-based sources of MPs (stormwater runoff from different land-use
types (Fig. S8), WWTPs effluent) were listed in Table S1. The correla­
tion between diversity index of MPs and the number of land-use type
was significant (SDI: polymer: r = 0.935, p = 0.000; shape: r = 0.736, p
= 0.001; colour: r = 0.558, p = 0.020; size: r = 0.0.507, p = 0.038; SWI:
polymer: r = 0.857, p = 0.001; shape: r = 0.717, p = 0.001; colour: r =
0.583, p = 0.014; size: r = 0.0.528, p = 0.029), which means the number
of land-use type can determine diversity index of MPs in urban areas
(Fig. 4 and Fig. S9), because the human activities, which results in the
appearance of MPs in the environment, is greatly related with the
land-use type. Specifically, for Nan Lake, the sites in proximity to the
pipes (Site 2, 5 and 6, see Fig. S10) discharging stormwater into the lake
had an obvious high abundance of MPs, indicating the movement of MPs
from the catchment into the lake through stormwater runoff. Moreover,

Fig. 4. The relationship between SDI and the number of land-use type ((a) polymer, (b) shape, (c) colour, (d) size). Solid lines indicate mean estimates, and the
shaded area denotes 95% prediction intervals. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of
this article.)

6
Q. Fang et al.
sites 30, 30, 31 of Yushan Lake and sites 14, 15, 17 of Yongfeng River,
close to the traffic road with various human activities, obtained high
diversity indices. However, it is better to give a different weight of
land-use to identify the influence on MPs’ diversity. At present, there has
been not enough data to calculate the weight of land-use, and the in­
fluence of the weight of land-use will be analysed in future work.
According to this study, effective measures for alleviating MPs from
land-based sources include strict management of plastic waste declining
from stormwater, efficient stormwater collection and treatment to
reduce MPs from entering the aquatic environment during rainy days
and decreasing in the use of plastic production or the production con­
taining MPs.
4. Conclusion
MPs are ubiquitously present in the sediments of urban freshwater of
Yangtze River watershed, with the pollution level varying from place to
place. This study confirmed that MPs in sediments in the urban water
system are predominantly <1000 μm in size, in the shape of films, and
composed of the PE and PP. A significant positive correlation between
the diversity index of MPs and the number of land-use type in the urban
areas exists, and either the SDI or SWI can be applied in the analysis of
MP. The diversity of MPs in urban areas seems to be lower than coastal
zones. MPs with size <1000 μm, polymer in PP and PE tend to accu­
mulate in the sediments after they enter the Yangtze River from the
urban stream. Stormwater runoff is believed to be a significant
contributor of MPs in the urban water system. It is highly recommended
to strengthen the control of MPs from stormwater runoff. In the present
study, the weight of land-use has not been used due to the lack of data,
and this work is planned in the following study.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Qin Fang: Experiment, Formal analysis, and writing. Siping Niu:
Conceptualization, Methodology, writing, Reviewing and Editing.
Jianghua Yu: Reviewing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foun­
dation of China (Grant No. 41701553), the Anhui Provincial Natural
Science Foundation (Grant No. 1808085QD109) and the Scientific
Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars of
Anhui Province. The authors are grateful for the support.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128537.
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