Three-dimensional distribution of anthropogenic microparticles in the body of sandy beaches

Abstract

External oceanographic conditions rather than anthropogenic influence are shown to cause the 3-dimensional distribution of anthropogenic microparticles (MP, 0.5–5mm) within the body of sandy beaches of a non-tidal sea with strong wind/wave climate and seasonal sea level variations (the Baltic Sea). A patchy structure is confirmed in all three dimensions, with background concentrations of several tens of MP items per kg of dry sample weight versus peaking spots with several hundreds of items per kg dry weight. The background MP concentrations are of the same order of magnitude for the beach surface, beach body, and sands of underwater coastal slopes, highlighting that the contaminated by MPs sand cover of the entire sea coastal zone is one single entity, repeatedly re-distributed between its underwater and beach parts by every next storm. Peaking concentrations are related to stormy events and places with stronger water dynamics, and are associated with locations of coarser sands within the beach body and wracklines at the beach surface. This suggests that marine waters are the source of anthropogenic microparticles for the beach, and not vice versa. The prevalence of wave-driven over wind-driven beaching mechanism for MPs extracted from the beach samples is confirmed by the flotation tests. Size distribution of the extracted MPs is found to be similar to that obtained for plastics floating at the ocean surface. Such a coherency for different oceanic environments speaks in favor of independence of general fragmentation processes on the particular external conditions, shifting the attention to the fragmentation process and material properties of synthetic particles in marine environment. CapsuleStormy winds, surface waves, and sea level variations rather than anthropogenic load define 3-d variability of pollution by synthetic microparticles within the sand body of beaches.