Microplastics (of size < 5 mm) pollution in our environment is of current concern by researchers, public media and non-governmental organizations. Implications by their presence in aquatic and soil ecosystems have been well studied and documented, but less attention has been paid on airborne microplastics (MPs). Studies concerning airborne microplastics started from 2016 and only a few (n = 13) have been published to date. Although, studies may increase in the following years, since air is very important for human survival. Microplastics have been observed in atmospheric fallouts in indoor and outdoor environments using a sampling or vacuum pump, rain sampler, and/or particulate fallout collector. Identification and quantification have been carried out by visual, spectroscopic, and spectrometric techniques. Factors such as meteorological, climatic, and anthropogenic influence the distribution and movement of airborne MP. Human exposure may be through inhalation, dermal, and open meal during fallout, with their potential biopersistence and translocation. Ingestion may cause localized inflammation and cancer due to responses by the immune cells, especially in individuals with compromised metabolism and poor clearance mechanisms. Ecological risks involve possible contamination of the ecosystem through a dynamic relationship of MPs in soil, water, and air forming a MP contamination cycle. The present review aimed at providing a comprehensive overview of current knowledge or information regarding microplastics in air, identifying gap in knowledge, and giving suggestions for future research.

Airborne microplastics: a review study on method for analysis, occurrence, movement and risks.

A deuterium-based labeling technique for the investigation of rooting depths, water uptake dynamics and unsaturated zone water transport in semiarid environments

Assessment of groundwater–surface water interaction using long-term hydrochemical data and isotope hydrology: Headwaters of the Condamine River, Southeast Queensland, Australia

Is the isotopic composition of event based precipitation driven by moisture source or synoptic scale weather in the Sydney Basin, Australia?

Received 3 April 2013; revised 28 May 2013; accepted 29 May 2013; published 7 August 2013. [1] End-member mixing models have been widely used to separate the different components of a hydrograph, but their effectiveness suffers from uncertainty in both the identification of end-members and spatiotemporal variation in end-member concentrations. In this paper, we outline a procedure, based on the generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) framework, to more inclusively evaluate uncertainty in mixing models than existing approaches. We apply this procedure, referred to as G-EMMA, to a yearlong chemical data set from the heavily impacted agricultural Lissertocht catchment, Netherlands, and compare its results to the ‘‘traditional’’ end-member mixing analysis (EMMA). While the traditional approach appears unable to adequately deal with the large spatial variation in one of the end-members, the G-EMMA procedure successfully identified, with varying uncertainty, contributions of five different end-members to the stream. Our results suggest that the concentration distribution of ‘‘effective’’ end-members, that is, the flux-weighted input of an end-member to the stream, can differ markedly from that inferred from sampling of water stored in the catchment. Results also show that the uncertainty arising from identifying the correct end-members may alter calculated endmember contributions by up to 30%, stressing the importance of including the identification of end-members in the uncertainty assessment.

/pdf/uncertainty-estimation-of-end-member-mixing-using-3wu75p0o5e.pdf

L. Pöltenstein

Papers

A simple rain collector preventing water re-evaporation dedicated for δ18O and δ2H analysis of cumulative precipitation samples