Abundance, chemical composition and ecological risk of microplastics (MPs) in terrestrial and marine environments have merited substantial attention from the research communities. This is the first attempt to comprehend the ecological risk of MPs in sediments along the Indian coast using meta-data. Polymer hazard index (PHI), pollution load index (PLI) and potential ecological risk index (PERI) were used to evaluate the quality of sediments. Areas have high PHI values (>1000) due to the presence of polymers with high hazard scores such as polyamide (PA) and polystyrene (PS). According to PLI values, sediments along the west coast of India (WCI) are moderately contaminated with MPs (PLI: 3.03 to 15.5), whereas sediments along the east coast of India (ECI) are less contaminated (PLI: 1 to 6.14). The PERI values of sediments along the Indian coast showed higher ecological risk for the metropolitan cities, river mouths, potential fishing zones and the remote islands.

Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy has been extensively used in microplastic (MP) pollution research since 2004. The aim of this review is to discuss and highlight the recent advances in FTIR (spectroscopy and chemical imaging) techniques that are used to characterize various polymer types of MPs and to trace their fate and transport in different environmental matrices. More than 400 research papers dealing with FTIR techniques in MP pollution research, which are published between January 2010 and December 2019, have been identified from the Scopus and Web of Science databases. The MPs present in sediment, water (marine and freshwater), biota, air/dust, waste water treatment plants and salt are further classified according to (1) characterization and identification, (2) weathering and aging, (3) ecotoxicology, and (4) analytical methods. The results revealed that the ATR-FTIR technique is mostly used to identify and characterize the MPs found in water and sediment. The µFTIR (FTIR imaging) is extensively used to study the ingestion of MPs in biota (both marine and freshwater). In this article, we have summarized the current knowledge of application of FTIR spectroscopy to MP research and provided insights to future challenges for understanding the risk of MPs.

As a consequence of change in global climate, an increased frequency of natural hazards such as storm surges, tsunamis and cyclones, is predicted to have dramatic affects on the coastal communities and ecosystems by virtue of the devastation they cause during and after their occurrence. The tsunami of December 2004 and the Thane cyclone of 2011 caused extensive human and economic losses along the coastline of Puducherry and Tamil Nadu. The devastation caused by these events highlighted the need for vulnerability assessment to ensure better understanding of the elements causing different hazards and to consequently minimize the after- effects of the future events. This paper demonstrates an analytical hierarchical process (AHP)-based approach to coastal vulnerability studies as an improvement to the existing methodologies for vulnerability assessment. The paper also encourages the inclusion of socio-economic parameters along with the physical parameters to calculate the coastal vulnerability index using AHP-derived weights. Seven physical–geological parameters (slope, geomorphology, elevation, shoreline change, sea level rise, significant wave height and tidal range) and four socio-economic factors (population, land use/land cover (LU/LC), roads and location of tourist areas) are considered to measure the physical vulnerability index (PVI) as well as the socio-economic vulnerability index (SVI) of the Puducherry coast. Based on the weights and scores derived using AHP, vulnerability maps are prepared to demarcate areas with very low, medium and high vulnerability. A combination of PVI and SVI values are further utilized to compute the coastal vulnerability index (CVI). Finally, the various coastal segments are grouped into the 3 vulnerability classes to obtain the coastal vulnerability map. The entire coastal extent between Muthiapet and Kirumampakkam as well as the northern part of Kalapet is designated as the high vulnerability zone, which constitutes 50% of the coastline. The region between the southern coastal extent of Kalapet and Lawspet is the medium vulnerability zone and the remaining 25% is the low vulnerability zone. The results obtained enable the identification and prioritization of the more vulnerable areas of the region in order to further assist the government and the residing coastal communities in better coastal management and conservation.