Spatial and Temporal Variations of Water Quality in Songhua River from 2006 to 2015: Implication for Regional Ecological Health and Food Safety

Chunfeng Wei,Guoping Wang,Chuanyu Gao,Dongxue Han,Qianxin Lin,Winston Zhao

doi:10.3390/su9091502

Abstract

The Songhua River is the largest river in northeastern China; the river’s water quality is one of the most important factors that influence regional ecological health and food safety in northeastern China and even the downstream of the Heilong River in Russia. In recent years, the Chinese government implemented several water resource protection policies to improve the river’s water quality. In order to evaluate the influence of the new policies on the water quality in the Songhua River, water quality data from 2006 to 2015 were collected monthly from the nine sites along the mainstream of the Songhua River. Results show that the water quality in the Songhua River could be divided into two groups during the last 10 years. Before 2010, water quality in the Songhua River was primarily influenced by regional human activities. Industries were the major pollutant sources in the upstream of the Songhua River. After several new policies were implemented by the local government in 2010, water quality in the Songhua River improved. As a result, the biodiversity of fish and ecological health in the Songhua River improved.

Highlights

From 1949 to 2015, the population in China increased from 0.5 to 1.4 billion [1]
For evaluating the spatial variation of water quality in the Songhua River, the water quality indicators in each site were used for heat map analysis, and the nine sampling sites along the Songhua River were divided into several groups based on the average of water quality indicators
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Summary

Introduction

From 1949 to 2015, the population in China increased from 0.5 to 1.4 billion [1]. The population growth together with the improving standards of living resulted in an increase in water demand [2,3]. With industrial and economical developments, changes in land use types and increasing amounts of wastewater produced by human activities led to water quality deterioration in most of China’s river systems [4,5]. Population growth and climate change apply a great pressure to water supply and water quality, especially in China. Many countries started to design and implement related policies to protect and improve water quality and to meet water demand. The European Union (EU) has designed and implemented the

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion