Abundance of mesoplastic on beaches, microbial profiles and coastal water quality analysis at selected islands in Peninsular Malaysia / Logananthini Muniandy

Logananthini , Muniandy (2021) Abundance of mesoplastic on beaches, microbial profiles and coastal water quality analysis at selected islands in Peninsular Malaysia / Logananthini Muniandy. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaya.

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Abstract

The marine environments including beaches around the world are littered with numerous types of waste particularly plastics. In Malaysia, there is increasing evidence of an extensive abundance of small plastic debris in coastal areas. The appearance of these plastics in coastal water might affect the quality of water and microbial organisms in it. Thus, this study aims to determine the mesoplastics (1 – 30 mm) abundance at the shorelines, coastal water quality, and microbial profiling at eight selected beaches. Triplicate sediment samples were collected from the top layer until 5 cm depth using a 50 × 50 cm quadrat. The separation of sediments and plastics was done using the nest sieving method. The mesoplastics were sorted and categorized by type and quantity based on the beach attributes. The water quality and microbiological parameters were determined by collecting triplicate coastal water samples at 3 m and 6 m distance from the shoreline and analyzed using standard methods. A series of physicochemical parameters namely temperature, dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, conductivity, salinity, turbidity, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total suspended solids, total dissolved solids, nitrate, ammonium, phosphate, and silicate were determined in this research. The microbial formation in coastal waters was analyzed using total heterotopic bacterial count and total coliform as indicators. A total average of 2631 ± 367 items/m2 of mesoplastics was collected from all the sampling sites. The highest mesoplastics were found at Pinang Seribu beach, Pulau Perhentian with 1112 ± 30 items/m2, and the lowest mesoplastics at Jeti beach, Pulau Besar with 20 ± 4 items/m2. The study indicates that the occurrence of marine debris at these beaches was not mainly caused by anthropogenic activities in that area but also was brought in from the sea. This may due to the physical condition and the beach position which tends to trap the marine debris from offshore. In addition, the ranges for the physicochemical parameters were 24.7 – 35.6oC for temperature, 2.20 – 7.87 mg/L for DO, 5.50 - 8.53 for pH, 36878 - 5226 μS/cm for conductivity, 32.42 – 33.81 ppt for salinity, 18.5 – 19.89 NTU for turbidity, 52.0 mg/L – 89.5 mg/L for BOD, 25.0 – 160.0 mg/L for TSS, 12.4 - 31.65 mg/L for TDS, 42.4 – 943.6 μg/L for nitrate, 47.3 – 353.6 μg/L for ammonium, 56.6 – 673.2 μg/L for phosphate, and 32.2 - 99.1 μg/L for silicate. Based on the water quality analysis, as per MMWQS, all the beaches fall within the limit suitable for recreational use. The most polluted beach was Pinang Seribu with low DO and high BOD, and TDS levels. The least polluted beach was Jeti beach with high DO and low levels of BOD, phosphate, and silicate. Moreover, the heterotopic bacterial count at all the sampling sites varied from 0.75 – 3.08 × 108 CFU/mL. The total quantity of coliforms at overall beaches were in the span of 22.64 to 50.84 × 108 MPN/100 mL. The highest amount of bacteria was observed at Pasir Belakang Beach and the lowest number was at Tengah Beach. The presence of mesoplastics in sediments on the selected beaches does not influence microorganisms in the seawater at that coastal line.

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