Behavior, mass inventories and modeling evaluation of xenobiotic endocrine-disrupting chemicals along an urban receiving wastewater river in Henan Province, China

Abstract

Historically, the locations of cities mainly depend on the available water source and the urban river not only supplies the fresh water to city but also receives its wastewaters. To analyze the influences of urban zone on its receiving water river, the Jialu River in Henan Province, China, a typical urban river was chosen. Water and sediment samples were collected along the river in 2007 to analyze the concentrations of xenobiotic endocrine-disrupting chemicals (XEDCs) including nonylphenol (NP), octylphenol (OP) and bisphenol A (BPA) in surface water and sediment. The results showed that the concentrations of OP, NP and BPA in surface water were 20.9–63.2 ng L −1 (mean 39.8 ng L −1), 75.2–1520 ng L −1 (mean 645 ng L −1), 410–2990 ng L −1 (mean 1535 ng L −1), respectively. The lowest and highest concentrations of XEDCs in surface water were found in the upper stream and downstream of Zhengzhou urban zone, which was regarded as the major discharge source of these chemicals to this river. The concentrations of OP, NP and BPA in the sediment were 15.9–31.1 ng g −1, 145–349 ng g −1 and 626–3584 ng g −1 with the average concentrations of 21.4 ng g −1, 257 ng g −1 and 2291 ng g −1, respectively. The results of in situ sediment–water partition of XEDCs showed that the partition coefficients (log K oc ′) in the downstream were higher than that in the upstream, which was mainly caused by the retransfer of surface sediment from the upper stream to the downstream. Comparison of measured and theoretical inventories of XEDCs in sediment indicated that the residual time of XEDCs in sediment in the river was about 5 years, which was in the same order of magnitude with its big flood frequency. In order to predict concentration variances of XEDCs in surface water, a fugacity-hydrodynamic model was developed according to the concept of in series completely stirred tank reactors (CSTR). The model results showed that about 29–65% of XEDCs derived from the urban zone (about 2.0 t yr −1) would finally dissipate from aqueous phase in the 170 km downstream of the river. Assuming the discharge amount of XEDCs from the urban zone remaining constant, the predicted concentrations of the total XEDCs in the over 90% river reach would be higher than 1.0 μg L −1 under all normal, high water and low water season in 2007.