Distribution Characteristics and Risk Assessment of Organophosphates in Water and Sediment in Dongting Lake

Abstract

Organophosphates （OPEs） are widely used as flame retardants and additives and thus are commonly detected in the environment. In order to explore their environmental behavior, the concentrations of 13 OPEs in the surface water and sediment of Dongting Lake were analyzed using UPLC-MS/MS. The results showed that 11 OPEs were detected, with detection frequencies of 5.26%-100% and 58.3%-100%, and the concentrations of OPEs were 2.06-2 028 ng·L-1 and 19.6-2 232 ng·g-1 in water and sediment, respectively. Overall, contamination concentrations were ranked in descending order as follows： inflowing rivers, lake area, and outlet, whereas the spatial distribution of concentrations in sediment was inversely proportional to hydrodynamics. The concentration of OPEs in Dongting Lake was at a high level compared with that of domestic and foreign lakes. Among the detected 11 OPEs, tri-iso-butyl phosphate （TnBP） and （TiBP） were dominant in water, accounting for 52.3% and 22.4% of ∑OPEs, respectively. TPhP was the dominant OPEs in sediment, accounting for 31.2% of ∑OPEs. The correlation and principal component analysis indicated that OPEs pollution in Dongting Lake was mainly affected by industrial production emissions, fishery aquaculture, and atmospheric deposition. The assessment results of the risk entropy showed that most of the detected OPEs in water had relatively low ecological risks, whereas the ecological risk of 2-ethylhexyl diphenyl phosphate （EHDPP） at some sampling points requires further attention.