| Description |
Anthropogenic activities contribute to the presence and abundance of microplastics in aquatic habitats. Microplastic pollution poses risks to the health of humans, wildlife, and ecosystems, acting as vectors that carry harmful toxins and disease. However, there is relatively little research on the extent to which microplastics pollute Utah's water systems and how anthropogenic activity impacts the presence and distribution of microplastics throughout catchments. The primary aim of this study was to quantify the abundance of microplastic pollution at five locations along Red Butte Creek, a tributary of the Jordan River that flows through the Salt Lake Valley of central Utah, and three impoundments located along the creek's flow-path. Secondary goals were to correlate microplastic pollution to existing Red Butte Creek water quality data and utilize publicly available hydrologic data to estimate microplastic particle loads on the scale of mean daily discharge at each stream study site. Red Butte Creek, a third order stream that originates from the Wasatch Mountains, flows from a relatively undisturbed US Forest Service Research Natural Area (RNA) through the campus of the University of Utah and densely urbanized areas before ultimately discharging into the Jordan River. This geographic setting allows us to observe changes in microplastic abundance along a distinct wildland to urban land-use gradient, as well as compare differences in microplastic abundance between lotic versus lentic parts of the catchment. It was hypothesized that microplastic concentrations would increase moving further down the urbanization gradient, and that microplastics would collect in lentic habitats more than in lotic habitats. Microplastic pollution did not follow the urbanization gradient as expected; however, microplastics were found to be ubiquitous and present at all sites sampled in the iii Red Butte Creek and follow trends of water quality measurements of particles in the water column. Overall, our findings suggest that Red Butte Creek experiences "urban stream syndrome" in terms of both water quality variables and microplastic pollution. |
