Recognition, possible source, and risk assessment of organic pollutants in surface water from the Yongding River Basin by non-target and target screening

Abstract

Organic pollutants in aquatic environment could have important implications on pollution stress on aquatic organisms and even on the risk of human exposure. Thus, revealing their occurrence in aquatic environment is essential for water quality monitoring and ecological risk purposes. In this study, a comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography connected with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC × GC-TOF-MS) was applied, to enable non-target and target analysis of pollutants in the Yongding River Basin. Based on the isotopic patterns, accurate masses and standard substances, certain environmental contaminants were tentatively identified which including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs), organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), phenols, amines, etc. The compounds with the highest concentration were naphthalene (109.0 ng/L), 2,3-benzofuran (51.5 ng/L) and 1,4-dichlorobenzene (35.9 ng/L) in Guishui River. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) discharges were a main source of pollutants in Yongding River Basin, as the types of compounds screened in the downstream river were relatively similar to those from WWTPs. According to the target analysis, a number of pollutants were selected due to the acute toxicity and cumulative discharge from WWTPs and downstream rivers. Three PAHs (naphthalene, Benzo(b)fluoranthene and pyrene) homologues showed moderate risk to fish and H. Azteca in Yongding River Basin, while the rest of the measured chemicals showed low ecological impact across the entire study area based on the risk assessment. The results are helpful for understanding the necessity of high-throughput screening analysis for assessing water quality of rivers and the discharge emissions of pollutants from WWTPs to the river environment.