Impact of land use land cover on microplastic accumulation in high-altitude freshwater lakes of the central Himalayas
Kannaiyan Neelavannan, Indra Sekhar Sen, Adil Bakir, J Nandhini, Alexandra R McGoran, Holly A Nel, Dhanalakshmi Ramalingam, Danja P Hoehn, Abdurahiman Pulikkoden · 2025
Read Impact of land use land cover on microplastic accumulation in high-altitude freshwater lakes of the central Himalayas by Kannaiyan Neelavannan, Indra Sekhar Sen, Adil Bakir, J Nandhini, Alexandra R McGoran, Holly A Nel, Dhanalakshmi Ramalingam, Danja P Hoehn, Abdurahiman Pulikkoden (2025) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-12835143.txt.
Description
Kannaiyan Neelavannan and eight co-authors measure microplastic pollution in three high-altitude lakes of the central Himalayas, and tie it to how the surrounding land is used. The lakes, Nainital, Bhimtal, and Garudtal in the Kumaun region, range from busy and urban to remote. The team sampled surface water at twenty-four points in all.
Microplastics turned up in every sample, even in isolated Garudtal. Counts were highest in Nainital, the most urban lake, at about 813 particles per cubic meter, and lowest in Garudtal at about 175. Most particles were fibers, and most were polyester, followed by polypropylene. Blue and pink particles dominated the colors. Larger particles, one to five millimeters, made up about half the catch. Pollution scores marked the lakes as lightly contaminated overall, but abundance rose with local development, waste handling, transport, and fishing. The authors call for tighter local waste control.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Kannaiyan Neelavannan, Indra Sekhar Sen, Adil Bakir, J Nandhini, Alexandra R McGoran, Holly A Nel, Dhanalakshmi Ramalingam, Danja P Hoehn, Abdurahiman Pulikkoden |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 54 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |