Parent and alkylated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in surface sediments of mangrove wetlands across Taiwan Strait, China: Characteristics, sources and ecological risk assessment

Qi Huang; Yaxian Zhu; Fang Wu; Yong Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.129168

Parent and alkylated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in surface sediments of mangrove wetlands across Taiwan Strait, China: Characteristics, sources and ecological risk assessment

Chemosphere. 2021 Feb:265:129168. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.129168. Epub 2020 Dec 2.

Authors

Qi Huang¹, Yaxian Zhu², Fang Wu¹, Yong Zhang³

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science of China (Xiamen University), College of the Environment and Ecology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361102, PR China.
² Department of Chemistry, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, PR China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science of China (Xiamen University), College of the Environment and Ecology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361102, PR China. Electronic address: yzhang@xmu.edu.cn.

PMID: 33307504
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.129168

Abstract

The characteristics, distributions and sources of parent polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and alkyl-PAHs (A-PAHs) as well as their ecological risk were explored in six mangrove wetlands across the Taiwan Strait, China. A-PAHs fingerprinting information, combined with PAHs diagnostic ratios and a positive matrix factorization model, were used to identify the sources of PAHs in the mangrove wetland surface sediment samples. The results showed that the total concentration of the 36 PAHs in the sediment samples varied from 186.2 to 2469.2 ng⸱g^-1. Furthermore, the total concentration of PAHs would be underestimated about 37.1%-80.6% when only the concentrations of 16 priority PAHs were examined in the sediment samples. Coal combustion (32.7%) and petroleum combustion (24.6%) were identified as important contributing sources in the Yunxiao, Fugong, and Quanzhou mangrove wetlands, whereas the main source was mainly petroleum combustion (49.1%) in the Guandu, Zhuwei and Waziwei mangrove wetlands. In addition, the guidelines for assessing the ecological risk of individual A-PAHs need to be developed due to lack of criteria for most individual A-PAHs.

Keywords: Alkylated PAHs; Mangrove wetland sediment; PAHs; Source identification; Taiwan strait.

MeSH terms

China
Environmental Monitoring
Geologic Sediments
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons* / analysis
Risk Assessment
Taiwan
Water Pollutants, Chemical* / analysis
Wetlands

Substances

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons
Water Pollutants, Chemical