scholarly journals Temporal and Spatial Distribution of Microplastics in a Coastal Region of the Pearl River Estuary, China

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 1618
Author(s):  
Siyang Li ◽  
Yilin Wang ◽  
Lihong Liu ◽  
Houwei Lai ◽  
Xiancan Zeng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
River Estuary ◽  
Coastal Region ◽  
Pearl River Estuary ◽  
Pearl River ◽  
Temporal And Spatial Distribution ◽  
The Pearl River Estuary ◽  
Average Abundance ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
The Pearl River

This study conducted an analysis of microplastics (MPs) pollution in a coastal region of the Pearl River Estuary (PRE) in the South China Sea. The results show that the abundance of MPs during the rainy season reached 545.5 particles m−3, which was 1.85-fold higher than during the dry season. The spatial distribution of MPs also varied offshore in the following order: the river > estuary > sea. The average abundance of MPs in the river was 1.17-fold higher than that of the estuary and 4.65-fold higher than that of the marine environment. There were large amounts of gray, white, and green MPs, and about 53.5–73.9% of the MPs were less than 0.5 mm. The main forms of MPs were fibers, granules, fragments, and films. MPs composed of polyethylene accounted for 35.7–38.8%. PCA analysis showed that MPs carried by the river were an important source of MP pollution in the coastal waters.

scholarly journals Large-scale Long Time-series InSAR Land Subsidence Research in the Pearl River Estuary

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
xiaowen luo ◽  
Hui Gao ◽  
Ziyin Wu ◽  
Shoujun Li ◽  
Jihong Shang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Land Subsidence ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Human Life ◽  
River Estuary ◽  
Pearl River Estuary ◽  
Pearl River ◽  
Temporal And Spatial Distribution ◽  
The Pearl River Estuary ◽  
The Pearl River

Abstract Due to the influence of human activity and changes in natural conditions, the Pearl River Estuary (PRE) has emerged as a large-scale area of land subsidence, which represents a serious threat to the quality of human life and sustainable socio-economic development. In response to the problems associated with the lack of man-made targets of traditional time-series Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) in estuaries and other coastal areas, a distributed scatterers (DS) InSAR method based on a spatially adaptive filter and an eigendecomposition algorithm to estimating the optimal phase of statistically homogeneous DS was applied to obtain subsidence data using 67 scenes Sentinel-1A SAR images covering the PRE. The temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of land subsidence were analyzed. The results suggest that land subsidence in the PRE was widespread and unevenly distributed with large differences between 2015 and 2018. The northwest and southeast are the main subsidence areas, with a maximum sedimentation rate greater than 25 mm/year.

Molecular composition and spatial distribution of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the Pearl River Estuary, China

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen He ◽  
Qiong Pan ◽  
Penghui Li ◽  
Wei Xie ◽  
Ding He ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Organic Matter ◽  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Dissolved Organic Matter ◽  
River Estuary ◽  
Pearl River Estuary ◽  
Molecular Composition ◽  
Pearl River ◽  
Terrestrial Organic Matter ◽  
The Pearl River Estuary ◽  
The Pearl River

Environmental contextEstuaries play an important role in global carbon cycling in terms of transforming dissolved organic matter (DOM). We describe the molecular composition and spatial distribution of DOM in the Pearl River Estuary, an area severely impacted by anthropogenic activities, and show how DOM composition gradually changes with salinity. The results will help our understanding of the sources and transformations of anthropogenic DOM discharged to the coastal seas. AbstractThe Pearl River is the second-largest river in China in terms of water discharge and brings enormous amounts of nutrients and terrestrial organic matter to the South China Sea, which makes the Pearl River Estuary (PRE) highly eutrophic. However, the molecular composition and distribution of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the PRE have scarcely been investigated. In this study, solid-phase extraction (SPE) was performed to collect DOM samples from PRE along a salinity gradient. The samples were characterised by negative-ion electrospray ionisation (ESI) Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS) to analyse their molecular composition and spatial distribution. The FT-ICR MS results showed that the terrestrial organic matter was gradually diluted and/or degraded during the migration from the river to the coastal ocean. Furthermore, both sulfur containing and unsaturated molecules were highly abundant in the upper stream samples, which indicated that anthropogenic input might be another important source of the assigned DOM in PRE. A group of bio-refractory molecules, characterised as carboxylic-rich alicyclic-like molecules, was found to accumulate with the increase of salinity. The composition of the SPE-DOM showed a gradual variation with the salinity and spatial changes; however, the variation was slightly different from those in pristine estuaries. This study demonstrates that the molecular composition of DOM is crucial for elucidating its source and transformation in an estuary.

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