Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management最新文献

{"title":"Models to Evaluate the direct Release of Cosmetic Ingredients into natural waters: Summary of the MERCI framework.","authors":"Ryan Heisler, Amelie Ott, Maura Roberts, W Martin Williams, Todd Gouin, Eva Klingelmann, Sascha Pawlowski, Arnaud Boivin, Ahmed Tlili","doi":"10.1093/inteam/vjag152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/inteam/vjag152","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Reliable environmental exposure assessment requires fit-for-purpose tools capable of characterizing the magnitude, frequency, and duration of chemical releases under realistic use conditions. While established regulatory models, such as the European Union System for the Evaluation of Substances (EUSES), support screening-level assessment of cosmetic ingredients released down-the-drain, direct release scenarios are not addressed within current chemical safety frameworks. To address this gap, we present MERCI (Models to Evaluate the direct Release of Cosmetic Ingredients into natural waters), which is an iterative, tiered exposure assessment framework, that can be used to derive predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) from, for example, UV-filters used in sunscreen products released directly into marine and freshwater systems. The MERCI Framework integrates existing environmental fate and transport models within a transparent structure that aligns model selection with problem formulation, regulatory objectives, data availability, and resource considerations. Lower tiers apply standardized, conservative assumptions consistent with regulatory screening practices, while higher tiers incorporate increasing environmental realism, including refined emission estimates and site-specific hydrodynamics to reduce uncertainty and address complex questions. The framework is intended to be iterative, enabling users to select and refine tools as needed to support decision-making, prioritize data generation, and strengthen confidence in environmental risk assessments. As regulatory expectations and scientific understanding evolve, MERCI provides a scalable, adaptable pathway to integrate direct-release exposure scenarios, particularly those associated with the direct release of UV-filters used in sunscreen products, into chemical safety evaluations.</p>","PeriodicalId":13557,"journal":{"name":"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148891241","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Nematode communities as bioindicators of forest soil health: responses to degradation and restoration practices.","authors":"Olaide Ayodele Oladeji, Jonathan Jeremiah Atungwu, Solabomi Olaitan Ayoade, Joshua Tunde Olaifa, Maryam Adeniran Adeleke, Moses Akintayo Aborisade","doi":"10.1093/inteam/vjag153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/inteam/vjag153","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Deforestation and forest degradation fundamentally alter subterranean ecosystems and the biological health of soils, yet belowground recovery trajectories remain poorly integrated into restoration monitoring frameworks. Soil nematodes are powerful bioindicators, but their application in forests has largely extrapolated from agricultural paradigms without accounting for forest-specific food web structures and dynamics. This review consolidates current understanding of nematode community responses to factors contributing to forest degradation, including deforestation, soil compaction, organic matter depletion, and alterations in nutrient dynamics. It also examines the impact of various restoration initiatives on recovery trajectories. We assess the theoretical principles and practical applications of nematode-based ecological indicators, including the maturity index, enrichment index, structure index, and channel index, as diagnostic tools for evaluating forest soil health. The review examines the relationship between changes in nematode trophic group composition and fluctuations in decomposition pathways, microbial dynamics, and plant-soil feedback mechanisms. Through case studies from tropical, temperate, and boreal forests, we identify knowledge gaps regarding nematode responses to innovative restoration techniques. We provide a conceptual framework for integrating nematode community analysis into forest soil health monitoring and offer practical recommendations for utilizing nematode indicators to inform adaptive management strategies for recovery of degraded and protection of healthy forest soils.</p>","PeriodicalId":13557,"journal":{"name":"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148873766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Planetary Boundaries and Absolute Sustainability in Life Cycle Assessment - past, present, and future.","authors":"Sarah Devecchi, Efstathios Reppas-Chrysovitsinos, Anna Lia S Tromer Dragsdahl, Lisa Pizzol, Elena Semenzin, Alex Zabeo, Danail Hristozov, Tomas Rydberg","doi":"10.1093/inteam/vjag150","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/inteam/vjag150","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Efforts to steer the social metabolism (i.e., how human societies interact with nature) towards sustainability are pulling assessment practice in two directions: \"relative\" product-to-product comparisons and \"absolute\" product-to-limit benchmarking, where the limit works as benchmark for the assessment. Within approaches such as Safe and Sustainable by Design, inherently threshold-based \"absolute\" chemical Risk Assessment is coupled to Life Cycle Assessment, which has traditionally been used as a tool for comparing alternatives. This coupling is driving the development of methodologies for comparative assessment of (eco)toxicological impact potentials (e.g., chemical footprinting). In parallel, the emergence of the Planetary Boundaries framework has renewed the interest in shifting from comparative assessments towards absolute benchmarking against global environmental limits, leading to Absolute Environmental Sustainability Assessment. This paper reviews how environmental limits are incorporated into Life Cycle Assessment through early distance to target methods (such as Ecological Scarcity, Environmental Themes, Eco-Indicator 95) to support business-driven eco-efficiency decisions and how impacts were anchored in national or regional targets and critical loads. We then discuss how the Planetary Boundaries framework reorganizes limits around Earth-system processes and how Planetary Boundaries based Life Cycle Assessment translates global boundaries into Life Cycle Assessment indicators and Planetary Boundaries based \"budgets\" for products and sectors. Across these developments, we show that setting and allocating thresholds reflects conflicting notions of \"weak\" and \"strong\" sustainability and is unavoidably value-laden and argue that making this \"valuesphere\" explicit is crucial if Planetary Boundaries based Life Cycle Assessment is to inform credible, product-level Safe and Sustainable by Design decisions on absolute sustainability.</p>","PeriodicalId":13557,"journal":{"name":"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148864666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Regional risk assessment Part II: identification of diffuse soil contamination hotspots.","authors":"Giulia Minolfi, Fabio Rosada, Elisa Giubilato, Alex Zabeo, Stephane Belbèze, Virginie Derycke, Timo Tarvainen, Isadora Antoniano-Villalobos, Elena Semenzin, Lisa Pizzol","doi":"10.1093/inteam/vjag148","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/inteam/vjag148","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Diffuse soil contamination represents a widespread environmental issue, resulting from multiple low-intensity and spatially dispersed sources, including atmospheric deposition, agricultural practices, traffic emissions, and legacy industrial activities. Unlike point-source pollution, diffuse contamination lacks a clear spatial origin, requiring methodologies that can integrate measured data with environmental processes. In this case concentration-based mapping alone is often insufficient to support risk-informed management decisions. This study presents a regional-scale environmental risk assessment framework for diffuse soil contamination, building on the methodological advances introduced in the companion paper (Part I) and extending them to spatially distributed pressures. The assessment is expanded to a multi-contaminant context, including both inorganic and organic compounds, and contaminant concentrations are evaluated against land-use-specific regulatory threshold values. Hazard maps are normalised according to the established criterion whereby soils are considered hazardous when concentrations exceed threshold values by one order of magnitude, enabling consistent comparison and aggregation across contaminants. Exposure is modelled through four exposure pathways (groundwater, surface water, direct contact, and air dispersion) and receptor vulnerability is further articulated for groundwater resources, surface waters, protected areas and human health. The resulting framework supports a transition from a predominantly regional human-health-oriented assessment towards a more comprehensive environmental risk assessment, producing spatially explicit prioritisation maps for individual contaminants and aggregated diffuse-contamination risk. Application to the Toulouse Metropolitan Area (France), demonstrates the ability to move beyond concentration exceedances by identifying areas of higher management priority where diffuse pressures, transport processes and receptor vulnerability converge. Implemented within a GIS-based Model Builder environment, the methodology is reproducible and transferable to other regions where soil data are available but site-specific information is limited, offering a scientifically grounded basis for supporting decision-makers in land-use planning, monitoring prioritization and early-stage risk-based management actions, in line with the new EU Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive.</p>","PeriodicalId":13557,"journal":{"name":"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148864679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Biodiversity and chemical regulation: Status quo, data gaps, and recommendations for future action.","authors":"Anja Gladbach, Christoph J Mayer, Aaron Stoler, Sian Ellis, Marta Baccaro, David A Bohan, Franziska Enzmann, Emily Garman, Jutta Hellstern, Sarah A Hughes, Philippe Lemaire, Jan-Dieter Ludwigs, Lorraine Maltby, Anna-Maija Nyman, Hans Sanderson, Simran Sandhu, Marco Thines, Johannes Tolls, Lucy Wilmot, Nika Galic","doi":"10.1093/inteam/vjag145","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/inteam/vjag145","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Global biodiversity is declining, driven by multiple, interacting pressures including the 5 most prominent of resource use, habitat loss, invasive species, climate change, and chemical pollution. While chemical exposure is recognised as a potential driver of biodiversity loss, quantitative links and its relative impact compared to other stressors remains poorly understood. The European Union (EU) has intensified efforts to reduce pollution and restore biodiversity through strategic frameworks such as the Biodiversity Strategy, Farm to Fork Strategy, Zero Pollution Action Plan, and Chemical Strategy for Sustainability. Key chemicals regulations like REACH and the Plant Protection Products Regulation aim to protect ecosystems, however, due to the complexity of ecosystems and the range of impacting stressors it is difficult to measure their direct impact on maintaining or improving biodiversity objectives. This review, conducted by a multidisciplinary Task Force brought together by ECETOC, evaluates the current state of biodiversity research efforts and its integration within EU chemical regulation. We examined EU legislation, strategy documents, EU-funded research, and peer-reviewed literature to identify biodiversity definitions, metrics, and methodologies, and to highlight gaps in linking chemical exposure to biodiversity outcomes. Findings indicate that: current chemical regulations reference biodiversity mainly qualitatively, biodiversity research often lacks a focus on chemical impacts, and research outcomes are not clearly linked to regulatory frameworks. The relationship between biodiversity and chemical impacts is further complicated by diverse definitions and metrics of biodiversity in the academic literature, with limited consistency across biomes and minimal alignment with chemical risk assessment practices. To strengthen biodiversity considerations in chemical regulation, we recommend: developing operational definitions of biodiversity applicable across regulatory contexts; standardising metrics and indicators; establishing a centralised data platform for biodiversity research; and leveraging existing data, methodologies, tools and new technologies (e.g. machine learning). Bridging knowledge gaps between policy objectives and available approaches, whilst aligning biodiversity considerations across both chemical regulation and other regulations which can impact biodiversity such as habitat loss, will promote coherence and cooperation. Continued multistakeholder engagement and alignment is critical in achieving these recommendations.</p>","PeriodicalId":13557,"journal":{"name":"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148818330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From \"wish-list\" to successful delivery: Opportunities for multidisciplinary and multisectoral engagement in implementation of strategies to phase out animal testing.","authors":"Paris Jeffcoat, Steven Maguire, Gordon M Hickey","doi":"10.1093/inteam/vjag146","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/inteam/vjag146","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Regulatory agencies worldwide are calling for New Approach Methods (NAMs) that reduce reliance on vertebrate animal testing in toxicological risk assessment and related regulatory decision-making. In this Brief Communication, we consider three recent examples of holistic strategies that support the development, validation, and uptake of NAMs in regulatory settings, namely the 'Strategy to replace, reduce or refine vertebrate animal testing under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA)', the 'Replacing animals in science: A strategy to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods' in the United Kingdom, and the 'Roadmap towards phasing out animal testing for chemical safety assessments' from the European Union. The development, consultation on, and publication of these strategies represent an important step forward in the regulatory adoption of NAMs. We aim to interpret and highlight commonalities and differences between these strategies to identify the themes and actions being proposed to eliminate NAM obstacles and enhance NAM drivers in different regulatory settings. Further, we consider some of the challenges that may lay ahead in the effective implementation and delivery of these strategies, including 1) Sustaining commitment to delivery of aspirational plans, 2) Increasing engagement in regulatory processes by NAM developers, and 3) Increasing the regulatory relevance of NAM data.</p>","PeriodicalId":13557,"journal":{"name":"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148818352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Flood Hazard Assessment using Rainfall Data (1995-2025) with a Hydrograph Approach and an Eco-Geomorphic Overview in Padang City, Indonesia.","authors":"Aprizon Putra, Triyatno, Sari Nova, Iswandi Umar, Azhari Syarief, Helfia Edial, Indang Dewata, Gunardi Kusumah, Semeidi Husrin, Nirmawana Simarmata","doi":"10.1093/inteam/vjag147","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/inteam/vjag147","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Padang City experiences recurrent flooding because intense rainfall, rapid runoff from eastern catchments, low-lying floodplains, and coastal-estuarine backwater effects interact across a developed watershed continuum. Existing assessments often examine rainfall, runoff response, spatial hazard, and ecological functions separately, limiting integrated flood-risk reduction and land-use planning. This study aims to 1) analyze areal rainfall frequency for 1995-2025 using the Annual Maximum Series of 24-hour Rainfall (R24/AMS), the Log-Pearson Type III (LP-III) distribution, and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) goodness-of-fit test; 2) generate a preliminary regional-scale runoff hydrograph using the Nakayasu Synthetic Unit Hydrograph (SUH) to characterize event magnitude and response timing under design rainfall; and 3) map flood-hazard zones using GIS-based weighted overlay scoring that integrates hydrological, geomorphological, and ecological parameters. Rainfall records indicate interannual variability and repeated ≥150 mm/24 h events, including 447 mm on 07/03/2024 and 261 mm on 25/11/2025. Design 24-hour rainfall increases from 160.87 to 334.14 mm across 2-50-year return periods, producing 4-hour intensities of 22.13-45.97 mm/h. The preliminary Nakayasu scenario yields peak discharges of approximately 135-250 m³/s with short times to peak and should be interpreted as screening evidence rather than basin-specific engineering estimates. The flood-hazard map classifies 537.97 km² (77.41%) as Safe, 96.74 km² (13.92%) as Low, 36.76 km² (5.29%) as Moderate, and 23.49 km² (3.38%) as High. Moderate- and high-hazard areas cluster in fluvial-marine lowlands such as floodplains, backswamps, coastal alluvium, river corridors, and estuaries. These findings provide a basis for Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction (Eco-DRR) through retention-space protection, river setbacks, wetland restoration, upland recharge conservation, and erosion-sediment control.</p>","PeriodicalId":13557,"journal":{"name":"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148812934","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Agricultural Drainflow: Landscape risk mapping to facilitate field level risk assessments of plant protection products in Great Britain.","authors":"Greg Hughes, Abdul Abu, Robin Sur, Adrian Terry, Kirk Hill","doi":"10.1093/inteam/vjag137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/inteam/vjag137","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>To date, there are very few studies focusing on risk mapping of agricultural drainflow losses of pesticides in Great Britain (GB). A spatially distributed landscape implementation of the UK higher tier drainflow environmental risk assessment modelling framework at 1 km resolution was developed for three example pesticide active substances and used to derive substance-specific drainflow risk index (DFRI) maps covering GB. The DFRI mapping approach comprised of: (A) definition of high-resolution landscape scenarios in the drainflow simulation modelling that would underpin the DFRI; and (B) construction of 2 and 3 class bivariate DFRI aligned with the existing GB regulatory approach for use in field scale risk assessment and communication. Visual comparison of the DFRI maps for the three active substances indicates the influence of substance properties, with the mobile non-persistent substance demonstrating large areas of safe use, while the slightly-mobile moderately persistent substance demonstrated less low-risk areas. Across all three substance DFRI maps, there are locations where no/few drained soils are present, indicating inherently safe usage locations exist alongside the low-risk areas. A limiting factor of the DFRI approach is the reliance on generalised soil association data as being an accurate representation of the soils actually present at a location. The DFRI approach offers an opportunity to move away from a binary regulatory decision of a product being registered or not, to one that allows use in locations where it is safe to do so, while prohibiting use in those locations where it is not. This more targeted approach would allow users access to a wider range of crop protection options to leverage greater benefits whilst simultaneously reducing risks to aquatic habitats. In order to adopt such an approach, regulators would require reassurance that users could undertake and comply with the results of a field level risk assessment.</p>","PeriodicalId":13557,"journal":{"name":"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148792548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"ERAHUMED: An integrated modelling platform for the landscape-level ecological risk assessment of pesticides used in rice-farming systems.","authors":"Valerio Gherardi, Pablo Amador, Andreu Rico","doi":"10.1093/inteam/vjag139","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/inteam/vjag139","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Pesticides are major stressors affecting freshwater biodiversity; however, the cumulative risks posed by multiple substances used within the same crop, across different crops, or over multi-year application cycles remain poorly understood. Here we introduce the ERAHUMED model, a modeling platform designed to assess the ecological risks of pesticide mixtures associated with rice farming at the landscape scale. The model uses the Albufera Natural Park (Valencia, Spain), one of the most important Mediterranean coastal wetlands, as a reference area. ERAHUMED integrates a hydrological module, an agricultural management module, a three-compartment (plant, water, sediment) pesticide exposure module, and a risk assessment module that employs both deterministic and probabilistic approaches for calculating pesticide risks. The model's novelty lies in its capacity to evaluate how different agrochemical management practices, including various pesticide application schemes and spatial crop patterns, along with landscape architecture, climate, and hydrological variations, influence pesticide exposure and associated risks to aquatic ecosystems. Here, we detail the model's core principles, its calibration and validation using monitoring data, and present two application case studies. These case studies demonstrate how the model can be used to compare the ecological risks posed by old and current pesticide application schemes at the landscape scale, as well as to assess the influence of extreme climatic events on pesticide exposure and risks in downstream water bodies. The model is implemented as an R package with an integrated Shiny-based graphical user interface. This implementation enables efficient landscape-scale evaluations of pesticide application schemes, agricultural management practices, and their associated ecological risks for a broad range of users, with a particular focus on researchers and environmental managers aimed at minimizing pesticide risks.</p>","PeriodicalId":13557,"journal":{"name":"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148766326","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Flotation of polymer‑coated fertilizer capsules in paddy fields: Drivers and implications for microplastic discharge control.","authors":"Naoya Katsumi, Ryuto Suzuki, Takasei Kusube","doi":"10.1093/inteam/vjag138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/inteam/vjag138","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Polymer-coated fertilizer capsules are a relevant source of agricultural microplastics in paddy fields, yet controls on their mobilization during puddling remain insufficiently quantified. We investigated capsule flotation across 40 rice paddy fields in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. Accumulated capsule stocks in soil and water depth jointly controlled capsule mobilization to the water surface during puddling. Water depth explained a proportion of variation comparable to or greater than that explained by soil capsule concentration, indicating strong hydrological control on mobilization. The proportion of floating capsules increased with increasing water depth, and segmented regression identified a change point at approximately 8 cm under the conditions of this study, suggesting a shift in flotation behavior. Comparative analysis among fields with different management histories, together with polymer-specific indicators of soil residence time, suggested that longer soil residence is associated with lower flotation potential. Accordingly, recently accumulated capsules exhibited greater mobility than long-residence particles. These findings demonstrate that microplastic mobilization during puddling is governed by the interaction between accumulated particle stocks, hydrological conditions, and time-dependent particle properties. Consequently, agricultural microplastic discharges cannot be predicted from accumulated particle stocks alone but require explicit consideration of hydrological controls on mobilization. Water management during puddling therefore represents a practical leverage point for mitigating discharges.</p>","PeriodicalId":13557,"journal":{"name":"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148759549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}