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Turkish Journal of Agriculture and Forestry

Abstract

The increased reuse of treated wastewater (TWW) for irrigation in arid and semiarid regions raises environmental concerns regarding microplastics (MPs), specifically their capacity to adsorb and transport heavy metals. This study assesses the quantity of MPs and associated metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, Ni, and Co) in agricultural soils irrigated with TWW in the Konya region of Türkiye. To this end, a total of 202 soil samples were collected from TWW-irrigated (180) and nonirrigated control fields (22) at two depths (0–10 and 10–20 cm). MPs were extracted from the samples using a density separation technique, identified microscopically, and analyzed for metal adsorption using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES). Contamination and risk were assessed using the geoaccumulation index (Igeo), contamination factor (CF), enrichment factor (EF), potential ecological risk index (ER), pollution index (PI), and Nemerow pollution index (NPI). MP abundance was observed to be significantly higher in the TWW-irrigated soil samples (100–840 MP/kg at 0–10 cm; 80–660 MP/kg at 10–20 cm) than in the controls (100–220 and 80–240 MP/kg, respectively) (p < 0.05). Cd (0.41 mg/kg) and Cr (12.46 mg/kg) were the most abundant metals associated with MPs. Igeo and CF indicated moderate to heavy contamination, while the ER values revealed Cd to be the dominant ecological risk factor. EF and PI suggested minor to moderate enrichment with localized Cd and Pb hotspots. NPI values were indicative of high to very high overall heavy-metal pollution. Overall, the results reveal MPs to be both persistent pollutants and vectors, facilitating the vertical migration of metals and posing long-term ecological risks in TWW-irrigated agroecosystems.

Author ORCID Identifier

SENAR AYDIN: 0000-0002-0960-480X

OSMAN MÜCEVHER: 0000-0002-7709-2922

ARZU ULVİ: 0000-0001-7303-1869

FATMA BEDÜK: 0000-0003-0142-0122

ÖZEN MERKEN: 0000-0002-0481-0794

CİHAN UZUN: 0000-0001-9298-7372

MEHMET AYDIN: 0000-0001-6665-198X

DOI

10.55730/1300-011X.3354

Keywords

Heavy metals, microplastics, agricultural soil, wastewater irrigation, treated wastewater, ecological risk

First Page

325

Last Page

341

Publisher

The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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