Studying the Composition and Genesis of Organic Matter in Bottom Sediments of Polluted Small Watercourses in Khabarovsk City Territory

Abstract

The distribution of organic matter, hydrocarbons, phytopigments, and ecological-trophic groups of microorganisms was studied in the bottom sediments of ten small tributaries of the Amur R. near Khabarovsk. The water showed high concentrations of organic matter, varying from 44.47 to 279.3 mg/L. The concentration of Corg in bottom sediments varied from 1.9 to 23.1% in different types of sediments; the amount of hydrocarbons reached 5081 mg/kg, exceeding the background level by a factor of up to 50. Studies of the molecular composition of hydrocarbons in sediments revealed in some streams the predominance (up to 100% of the total) of light (C8–C13) n-alkanes, typical of oil products and the products of vegetation combustion. High-molecular compounds dominated in HC composition in most watercourses, including n-alkanes, genetically associated with terrestrial vegetation, and heavy fractions of oil products with various levels of microbial degradation. Volatile organic compounds were quantitatively dominated by the products of microbiological transformation (acetaldehyde and methanol). In terms of the concentration of sedimentary pigments (up to 400 µg/g), the sediments of the majority of watercourses belong to the hypereutrophic type. The total abundance of microorganisms in water varied from 2.7 to 488.0 thousand CFU/mL; in sediments, it was distributed symbatically, but ranged from 0.1 to 19.3 million CFU/g. The number of heterotrophic bacteria in bottom sediments correlated with the parameter of overload of the self-purification capacity (r = 0.718), and the number of oil-oxidizing bacteria correlated with hydrocarbon concentration (r = 0.967), thus confirming the indication properties of this bacterial group.