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Microplastics in the Soil: Pollution and Sustainable Solutions
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Microplastics in the Soil: Pollution and Sustainable Solutions

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Soil Conservation and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 10888

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Chunhui Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Materials and Environmental Engineering, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China
Interests: emerging contaminants; soil; pollutant emission; environmental fate; environmental model; health risk assessment
Dr. Yanhua Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Geography and Tourism, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710119, China
Interests: emerging contaminants; environmental geochemical behavior of organic pollutants; vadose zone; environmental fate; health risk assessment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Microplastics have recently attracted increasing attention because of their widespread distribution in different environments and their ability to easily enter the human body through various environmental exposure pathways. Moreover, large amounts of microplastics will have toxic effects on organisms, causing severe ecological risks, and could be transferred and enriched through food chains, thus threatening human health. Many previous reports have focused on the source, abundance, and distribution of microplastics in marine and terrestrial freshwater environments. Currently, there is still a large knowledge gap in the methods/standards of determining microplastics in soil environments, in the spatial distribution of microplastics in the soils from different land-use types, in the interactions between microplastics and pollutants (heavy metals, organic pollutants, antibiotics, etc.) in the soil environment, and in the effects of microplastic accumulation on soil ecosystems. Furthermore, it also requires the design of a sustainability framework for microplastics management based on its properties, e.g., better governance, toward a circular plastic economy as well as behavioral improvements in the residents.

In this Special Issue ‘Microplastics in the Soil: Pollution and Sustainable Solutions’ of the journal Sustainability, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

1) Analytical methods for microplastics in soils;

2) Distribution of microplastic in soil environment, preferably ones focused on urban areas;

3) The effect of microplastic accumulation in soil on the occurrence of pollutants, e.g., heavy metals, PAHs, PCBs, OCPs, and antibiotics;

4) The effects of microplastic accumulation on soil organisms, including plants, animals, and microbial communities; and

5) Sustainable solutions for microplastic accumulation in environments.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Chunhui Wang
Dr. Yanhua Wang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • microplastics
  • soil
  • distribution
  • toxicological effects
  • sustainability
  • vis-NIR spectroscopy
  • heavy metals
  • PAHs
  • antibiotics
  • analytical methods

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Review

20 pages, 3975 KiB  
Review
The Bibliometric Analysis of Microplastics in Soil Environments: Hotspots of Research and Trends of Development
by Tingting Yang, Jinning Liu, Hongfei Zhu, Lei Zhu, Tao Kong and Shanshan Tai
Sustainability 2023, 15(9), 7122; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097122 - 24 Apr 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1891
Abstract
Microplastics are persistent and complex contaminants and have been recognized as a global concern. Recently, increasing efforts have been devoted to studying the influence of microplastics on soils. However, the complexity of microplastics and the diversity of extraction methods result in a lack [...] Read more.
Microplastics are persistent and complex contaminants and have been recognized as a global concern. Recently, increasing efforts have been devoted to studying the influence of microplastics on soils. However, the complexity of microplastics and the diversity of extraction methods result in a lack of systematic analysis and comprehensive review in this field. In this paper, we used CiteSpace software to summarize the development of this field. Then, we visualized and analyzed the knowledge structure, research hotspots, and trend directions of this field. We found that the number of publications escalated dramatically, and 281 institutions in 69 countries have published articles in this field. Among them, China was the most productive contributor. However, according to the scientific collaboration analysis, we found that more than 90% of the authors who contributed to the field had no close connection. In co-occurrence analysis for subject categories, we found that the research in this field covered environmental science, engineering, ecology, and agriculture. Additionally, the effect of soil microplastics on agriculture was the most important problem in scientific research. The keyword co-occurrence cluster analysis revealed a total of 6 clusters, including “Identification” (#0), “Microbial community” (#1), “Oxidative stress” (#2), “Adsorption” (#3), “Porous media” (#4), and “Abundance” (#5). We discussed several aspects in detail, including detection methods, characteristics, environmental effects, adsorption capacity, removal and degradation, and toxicity. According to these results, we summarized the current research hotspots and evaluated future research trends in soil microplastics. This study is the first to specifically visualize the research field, and these results provide a reference for future research in the field of soil microplastics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microplastics in the Soil: Pollution and Sustainable Solutions)
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15 pages, 4473 KiB  
Review
Scientific Knowledge Mapping and Thematic Evolution for Tire Wear Particles
by Wei Wu, Jun Ma, Dong Liu, Qiao Xu and Gang Li
Sustainability 2023, 15(1), 583; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15010583 - 29 Dec 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2540
Abstract
In recent years, with the continuous increase of car ownership per capita, tire wear particles (TWPs) from road tire wear have been widely detected in various environmental media, and their environmental behavior and influence have attracted wide attention. Using the Web of Science [...] Read more.
In recent years, with the continuous increase of car ownership per capita, tire wear particles (TWPs) from road tire wear have been widely detected in various environmental media, and their environmental behavior and influence have attracted wide attention. Using the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) as a literature search platform, we mapped the research progress of TWPs from publication trends, international cooperation, journal distribution, interdisciplinary areas, and research themes with scientific knowledge mapping methods. Publications in the TWP field have shown an increase year by year, with great contributions from researchers in the USA and Europe, but the efforts and progress of Chinese researchers cannot be ignored. Science of the Total Environment was the most active journal in this field, with 54 relevant articles published. The research area of TWPs was multidisciplinary in nature, with a focus on Environmental Science, Atmospheric Meteorology Science, and Environmental Engineering. The research topics were mainly composed of three thematic groups: suspended particulate matter, air pollution sources, and microplastics in the environment, and research hotspots shifted from particulate matter to microplastics over time. Future research needs to focus on the origin, properties, and transport and dispersion of TWPs in water, atmosphere, and soil environments and to analyze the environmental impacts and ecological risks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microplastics in the Soil: Pollution and Sustainable Solutions)
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14 pages, 1817 KiB  
Review
Microplastic Pollution in the Soil Environment: Characteristics, Influencing Factors, and Risks
by Chunhui Wang, Junhong Tang, Haixia Yu, Yiyi Wang, Huanxuan Li, Shaodan Xu, Gang Li and Qian Zhou
Sustainability 2022, 14(20), 13405; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142013405 - 18 Oct 2022
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 5453
Abstract
As plastic products are widely used in all walks of life, plastic waste is also accumulating in the environment. Today, microplastic pollution in the soil environment has become an environmental issue of global concern. Compared with the water environment, the research on microplastics [...] Read more.
As plastic products are widely used in all walks of life, plastic waste is also accumulating in the environment. Today, microplastic pollution in the soil environment has become an environmental issue of global concern. Compared with the water environment, the research on microplastics in the soil environment is relatively lacking. Based on the above situation, this paper systematically reviews the distribution characteristics, influencing factors, and environmental and ecological risks of microplastics in the soil environment. The abundance, distribution characteristics, and impacts of microplastics in soils globally in recent years are reviewed in detail. Our review suggests that most scholars only focus on the surface soil, and the determination of the accumulation of microplastics in the soil as a whole is still lacking, and there is still no uniform standard for sampling techniques, extraction methods, analytical procedures, and even expression units for soil microplastics. The distribution of microplastics in soil is affected by human factors, natural factors, and the physical and chemical properties of the plastics themselves. We also focused on the analysis of the environmental risks arising from the accumulation of microplastics in soil interacting with metals and organic pollutants, and found that large research gaps exist in the interaction between microplastics and pollutants in the soil and the mechanism of compound pollution. The impact and ecological risks of microplastics on animals, microorganisms, and plants in the soil are explained. Moreover, key suggestions for future research are presented based on the current research status, and we call for more efforts focusing on the occurrence and fate of microplastics in the soil environment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microplastics in the Soil: Pollution and Sustainable Solutions)
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