Microplastics in Freshwater Ecosystems

Dear Colleagues,

Freshwater ecosystems, including lakes, rivers, reservoirs, ponds, and wetlands, play a fundamental role in sustaining biodiversity, providing drinking water, supporting fisheries, and ensuring a wide range of ecosystem services essential for human well-being. However, increasing amounts of plastic debris have entered these systems, both in the water column and sediments, where they undergo fragmentation processes leading to the formation of microplastics. These particles are highly persistent, widely dispersed, and capable of interacting with aquatic organisms at all levels of biological organization, thereby posing risks to ecological balance, water quality, and ultimately to human health.

Compared to marine environments, freshwater ecosystems frequently function both as transport pathways and as sinks for microplastics before they reach the oceans. Nevertheless, research on microplastics in lakes, rivers, and other freshwater bodies remains less advanced, which results in significant knowledge gaps concerning their sources, transport dynamics, environmental fate, and ecological impacts. Moreover, standardized methodologies for sampling, identification, and quantification are still under development, which limits comparability across studies and provides a robust scientific basis for effective management strategies, regulatory frameworks, and policy development.

This Special Issue seeks to address these challenges by inviting research contributions on the following topics, including but not limited to:

• Sources, pathways, and sinks of microplastics in freshwater ecosystems.
• Interactions of microplastics in the water column and sediments with aquatic biota across different trophic levels.
• Methodological challenges, including the development, validation, and harmonization of sampling strategies, analytical techniques, and data comparability for the detection, quantification, and characterization of microplastics.
• Long-term monitoring programs, seasonal dynamics, and spatial distribution of microplastic pollution in freshwater ecosystems.
• Environmental and anthropogenic drivers influencing the abundance, composition, and physicochemical characteristics of microplastics (e.g., polymer type, size distribution, surface properties, and sorption of contaminants).
• Experimental and modeling studies on the transport, transformation, degradation, and ultimate fate of microplastics in freshwater environments.
• The role of biofilms and microbiomes in the transport and transformation of microplastics.
• Ecotoxicological impacts of microplastics on aquatic organisms, trophic transfer, and broader implications for ecosystem functioning, food web dynamics, and human health.
• Innovative monitoring strategies, early-warning systems, risk assessment tools, and mitigation approaches aimed at reducing microplastic pollution in freshwater ecosystems.

The aim of this Special Issue is to compile original research articles, reviews, and methodological advances that enhance our understanding of microplastics in freshwater ecosystems, highlight emerging technologies, and provide a scientific basis for effective management strategies and policy development.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Piotr Zieliński
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Microplastics is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• microplastics
• freshwater ecosystems
• ecological impacts
• pollution management