Vertical Distribution of Microplastics in Coastal Sediments of Bama Resort, Baluran National Park, Indonesia
2019
Muhammad A. Asadi, Yody A.P. Ritonga, Defri Yona and Asus M.S. Hertika
Microplastic pollution is widely reported in different marine environments from shorelines to seabed of deep seas which pose an emerging threat to entire marine ecosystems. As the world’s secondlargest microplastics polluter, an understanding of the distribution of this type of pollution is important for the measurement of the magnitude of environmental risk. In the present study, the abundance and distribution of microplastics in coastal sediments of Bama Resort, Baluran National Park were measured at depths of 0-10 cm, 10-20 cm, and 20-30 cm. Microplastics characterization was performed using a modified flotation method while a sieve analysis was used to assess the particle size of the sediments. Results showed that there were 484 particles with a total average abundance of 116.41 ± 80.78 particles kg-1 DW. Fibres shared 37.8% of the total microplastics found with overall average of 43.71 ± 36.52 particles kg-1 DW. Overall, Tukey’s multiple comparisons test showed significant differences (P< 0.01) in vertical distribution of microplastics in which 55.46% of particles were found at the depths of 0-10 cm, whereas at the depths of 20-30 cm, the proportion was only 15.95%. There were two types of sediments, sandy gravel and gravelly sand in which the former type of sediments holds higher microplastic particles due to its grain dominance in upper sediments. These results imply that microplastics pollute coastal sediments of Bama Resorts, BNP, and their deposition increase over time as greater microplastics frequencies were observed in upper and more recent sediment.
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