Page - 85 - in Freshwater Microplastics - Emerging Environmental Contaminants?

MicroplasticPollution in InlandWaters FocusingonAsia ChenxiWu,KaiZhang, andXiongXiong Abstract The presence of microplastics in marine environment is increasingly reported and has been recognized as an issue of emerging concern that might adversely affect wildlife and cause potential risk to the health ofmarine ecosys- tems. In addition, preliminaryworks demonstrated thatmicroplastics are ubiqui- tously present in many inland waters with concentrations comparable or higher than those observed inmarine environments.Asia is themost populous continent in theworld, andmostAsian countries are under rapid developmentwhile facing seriousenvironmentalproblems. In this chapter,wereviewtheavailable literature reporting on the occurrence of microplastics in inland waters in Asia. Limited works haveprovidedbasic informationon the occurrence, distribution, andprop- ertiesofmicroplastics in lakes, reservoirs, andestuaries inAsia.Comparisonwith data fromother regionsworldwide suggests thatmicroplastic pollution in inland waters in Asia can be more serious. These preliminary results call for more research efforts to better characterize the sources, fate, effects, and risks of microplastics in inlandwaters.Extensiveand in-depth studiesareurgentlyneeded to bridge theknowledgegaps to enable amore comprehensive risk assessment of microplastics in inlandwatersandtosupport thedevelopmentofpolicyaddressing this issue. Keywords Asia,Lakes,Microplastics,Occurrence,Rivers, Source C.Wu (*),K.Zhang, andX.Xiong Institute ofHydrobiology,ChineseAcademyofSciences,Wuhan430072,China e-mail: chenxi.wu@ihb.ac.cn M.Wagner, S.Lambert (eds.),FreshwaterMicroplastics, HdbEnvChem58,DOI10.1007/978-3-319-61615-5_5, ©TheAuthor(s) 2018 85