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Pollution and Ecological Risk Assessment of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons by Species Sensitivity Distributions in the Liuxi River, South China
  
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KeyWord:polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; species sensitivity distributions; freshwater organisms; ecological risk assessment; Liuxi River
Author NameAffiliation
LI Bin The College of Natural Resources and Environment of South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Key Laboratory of Soil Environment and Waste Reuse in Agriculture of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, Guangzhou 510642, China 
XIE Qi-lai The College of Natural Resources and Environment of South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Key Laboratory of Soil Environment and Waste Reuse in Agriculture of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, Guangzhou 510642, China 
LIU Xin-yu The College of Natural Resources and Environment of South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Key Laboratory of Soil Environment and Waste Reuse in Agriculture of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, Guangzhou 510642, China
The Pearl River Water Environment Monitoring Center, Guangzhou 510611, China 
TANG Jia-jun The College of Natural Resources and Environment of South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Key Laboratory of Soil Environment and Waste Reuse in Agriculture of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, Guangzhou 510642, China 
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Abstract:
      Assessment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs) in water is critical to water quality. In this study, 16 priority PAHs in water samples(n=18) collected from the Liuxi River, a drinking water source of Guangzhou city, were measured using automatic solid-phase extraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometer(GC-MS). Their ecological risks to aquatic organisms were evaluated by Species Sensitivity Distributions(SSD). Total concentrations of 16 PAHs ranged from 107.5 ng·L-1 to 672.0 ng·L-1, with a mean value of 185.9 ng·L-1, which was lower than those reported for other river waters in both China and other countries. The PAHs in the water samples were dominated by 3-ring(51.8%), followed by 2-ring(23.4%) and 4-ring(15.2%) components. The ecological risk of PAHs to all species decreased in order of benzo(a) pyrene>anthracene>fluoranthene>phenanthrene>naphthalene>pyrene>fluorene>acenaphthene. The toxicities and ecological risks of PAHs were significantly higher to invertebrates than to vertebrates. However, the risk quotient values of PAHs to all speices were below 0.5, suggesting relatively low risks of PAHs in the water of Liuxi River .