What to monitor? Microplastics in a freshwater lake – From seasonal surface water to bottom sediments

Marine microplastics have received considerable attention, and efforts are underway to develop standardised methods for sampling, sample treatment, and analysis, while the observation of freshwater ecosystems remains relatively overlooked. To address this understudied environment, we present a comprehensive case study on microplastics in an urban lake from Baltic region of Northern Europe covering the seasonal dynamics of microplastics in surface water, deposition rate throughout one year in sediment traps and distribution of microplastics in dated sediment archive to determine the most representative environmental compartment for microplastic pollution monitoring. The following well-established microplastic research methods have been used: Manta trawling for surface water, trapping for assessing microplastics sedimentation rate and coring for sediments. Attenuated total reflection and micro-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy methods were used to investigate the synthetic nature of identified particles. The sediment core chronology was based on ²¹⁰Pb and Bayesian Plum model revealing sediment layers to represent even the time before the beginning of plastic mass production (approximately 1950). The surface water microplastic concentrations were higher in summer (5.71 particles/m³) and gradually decreased towards winter (0.75 particles/m³); they were almost 25 times higher in more recent (2018) sediments than in the deeper layers referring to years prior to 1890. Surprisingly, microplastic particles were found in sediments before the year 1950. The microplastic deposition rate was 9.47 particles/cm²/year or 4.31 µg/cm²/year. The most abundant polymers were polyethylene, polystyrene and polypropylene, and the prominent particle shapes were fibres in surface water and fragments in sediments. Our results provide a baseline for evaluating future contamination level changes in highly urbanized area. We recommend the combination of surface water filtering with net and sediment trapping methods for monitoring microplastics in lakes since this method requires little time and financial resources for sampling and processing and produces information on temporal microplastic occurrence and deposition.