Spatial Distribution and Corresponding Factors of Heavy Metals Concentrations in the Dongjiang River Basin, Southeast China

The Dongjiang River Basin (Southeast China) is the world's most populous and highly economic development region over the last few decades. The present study is the first systematic analysis of heavy metals of the aquatic environment in this area. Eighty seven samples were taken from the tributaries of the river network to investigate the characteristics of heavy metal pollutants within the catchment, which suggests a generally good water quality in terms of heavy metals, i.e., the mean metal concentrations of the tributaries are generally well below those recommended for drinking purposes and lower than metal concentrations in other regions and in world average background concentrations. Different multivariate statistical techniques are combined to analyze the spatial pattern and the origin of, and the land-use effects on heavy metal pollutants. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Redundant Analysis (RDA) are applied to group the different heavy metals according to their variability at different sites. Relatively high levels of Hg originated from various sources and cannot be quickly scavenged in the Dongjiang River system. An improved understanding of the sources and their binding behaviors of heavy metals have implied the trend of elevated toxic potential from certain metal groups in this aquatic ecosystem, which suggests the analysis of contaminates should probably be combined with biological evaluations of toxicity at specific sites in future work.

並列關鍵字

Anthropogenic sources ； contamination transport ； PCA ； pearl river delta ； RDA ； surface water

國際替代計量

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