Characteristics of Nitrate in Major Rivers and Aquifers of the Sanjiang Plain, China
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
View Online / Journal Homepage Journal of Dynamic Article LinksC< Environmental Monitoring Cite this: DOI: 10.1039/c2em30032j www.rsc.org/jem PAPER Characteristics of nitrate in major rivers and aquifers of the Sanjiang Plain, China Yingjie Cao,ab Changyuan Tang,*b Xianfang Song,a Changming Liua and Yinghua Zhanga Received 16th January 2012, Accepted 6th July 2012 DOI: 10.1039/c2em30032j À The characteristics of nitrate (NO3 ) in major rivers and aquifers of the Sanjiang Plain, China were investigated by hydrogeochemical conditions, nitrogen isotope technique and CFCs trace. An overall À understanding on the sources and fate of NO3 in the surface water and the groundwater was obtained. À The NO3 concentrations in the surface water were low and no samples exceeds the WTO standards. À However, 11.4% of the groundwater samples exceeded the WTO standards, indicating local NO3 pollution in rural areas. Redox condition analysis revealed that most of the surface water had oxic condition, while for the shallow groundwater (mean well depth smaller than 30 m), the redox condition began to change into anoxic zone, and the deep groundwater (mean well depth larger than 50 m) 15 showed strong anoxic condition. The d N-NO3 data indicated soil N and fertilizer contributed the À major sources in the surface water, and NO3 in the groundwater mainly showed a manure origin. In the Songhua–Heilong River, dilution effect was dominating, while for the Wusuli River, it showed that À À mix with water contained excess of NO3 resulted in the NO3 concentration increased along the river. À Additionally, the NO3 transportation in the groundwater was analyzed by groundwater ages derived À from environmental tracer (CFCs) data. The relation between the groundwater ages and the NO3 À concentrations showed that the young groundwater with the age less than 60 years had higher NO3 concentrations than the old groundwater over the age of 60 years because anthropogenic activities began to boom from 1950s in the Sanjiang Plain. Downloaded by CHIBA DAIGAKU on 04 September 2012 Published on 06 July 2012 http://pubs.rsc.org | doi:10.1039/C2EM30032J 1. Introduction oxygen, fish kills, loss of seagrass beds and other aquatic vege- À tation, degradation of coral reefs, and loss of biodiversity Nitrate (NO3 ) has been identified as one of the most problem- including species important to commercial and sport fisheries atic regional scale, widespread contaminant in water environ- 11 1–3 À and shellfish industries. ment throughout the world. Elevated NO3 concentrations The Sanjing Plain, as a part of the Songhua River basin, is were reported in lakes,4 rivers,5 aquifers,6,7 estuaries8 and catch- 9,10 located in the northeast part of China. The plain is one of the ment headwaters. In aquatic ecosystems, over enrichment of P biggest and most important grain production bases in China. and N causes many problems, such as toxic algal blooms, loss of Lots of wetlands have been exploited into crop lands since 1950s. In 2005, the area of crop lands was about 55 688 km2, three times aKey Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Process, that in 1954.12 The use of fertilizers was suspected as the major Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, nonpoint source contributing to the nitrogen pollution of surface Chinese Academy of Sciences, Datun Rd. A11, Chaoyang District, 13 Beijing 100101, China water and groundwater in the Sanjiang Plain. bGraduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University, Matsudo 271-8510, Nitrogen loading of the Songhua River basin was studied by a Japan. E-mail: [email protected] simplified binary structure model with the assistance of 3S (RS, Environmental impact Nitrate is the most ubiquitous chemical contaminant in water environments and the levels of contamination are increasing. Elevated nitrate concentrations have been reported in lakes, rivers, aquifers, estuaries and catchment headwaters. In aquatic ecosystems, over enrichment with P and N causes many problems, such as toxic algal blooms, loss of oxygen, fish deaths, loss of seagrass beds and other aquatic vegetation, degradation of coral reefs, and loss of biodiversity including species important to commercial and sport fisheries and shellfish industries. The Sanjiang Plain located in the northeast part of China is one of the biggest and most important grain production bases. It is important to investigate the sources and fate of nitrate in the major rivers and aquifers in Sanjiang Plain. This journal is ª The Royal Society of Chemistry 2012 J. Environ. Monit. View Online GIS and GPS) technology.13 The result showed that 74% of the largest tributary of the Heilong River in the south with mean total nonpoint pollution of nitrogen came from farmland culti- annual runoff of 72.7 billion m3 (2.31 Â 103 m3 sÀ1). The Wusuli vation, while the remainder came from non-agricultural sources, River is another international river with the headwater from the such as domestic living, livestock farm and urban storm water. Xingkai Lake, which is the north border of the study area. The However, it has been demonstrated that there was often a mean annual runoff of Wusuli River is about 61.9 billion m3 significant deficit in calculating the balance between the nitrogen (1.96 Â 103 m3 sÀ1). The Naoli River and the Muling River are loading and the nitrogen runoff in the river mouth without two major tributaries of the Wusuli River with mean considering denitrification processes in various river basins.14 annual runoff of 1.98 billion m3 (63 m3 sÀ1) and 2.35 billion 15 3 3 À1 Hydrogeochemical tools and nitrogen isotope (d N-NO3) m (75 m s ) respectively. technique were widely applied to investigate sources and fate of The aquifers of the Sanjiang Plain mainly consist of Quater- À NO3 in water environment. The hydrogeochemical tools nary alluvial deposits, principally sandy gravels, medium and fine including several redox reactions relating to the formation and sands, sandy clays and silts. The alluvial deposits are underlain À attenuation of NO3 were traditional methods to investigate the and surrounded by structurally disturbed base rocks of pre- À 15,16 environmental behavior of NO3 . The nitrogen isotopic trace Quaternary and older epochs. The aquifer thickness varies from technique initiated in early 1970s17 has been widely used to 50 m to 300 m. The characteristics of the deposits in the Sanjiang À evaluate the NO3 sources and other processes which affect the Plain are summarized as follows: the thickness of sediments nitrogen cycling, such as denitrification. And this technique is around Suibin in the west part of the study area is about 300 m À based on the fact that NO3 may have distinct isotopic signatures and the size of deposits is coarser than other parts of the study depending on its sources. area. The sediment around the line of Tongjiang–Fujin–Shuan- In this study, both the hydrogeochemical tools and the gyashan is mainly medium sands in a range of 50–100 m in nitrogen isotope technique were used to give an overall under- thickness and the pre-Quaternary rocks crop out can be found À 19 standing of the sources and fate of NO3 in the surface water and near Fujin. groundwater in the Sanjiang Plain. The goals of this study were À to (1) show the characteristics of spatial distribution of NO3 in 3. Materials and methods the major rivers and aquifers of the Sanjiang Plain; (2) analyze the redox environment and denitrification potentials for both the 3.1 Field procedures surface water and groundwater; (3) identify and distinguish the À À The spatial distribution of NO3 in the Sanjiang Plain was sources of NO3 in different water bodies by nitrogen isotope investigated based on 55 water samples, which were collected in technique; and (4) reveal the transportation and migration of À September 2007 and September 2009. The samples included 21 NO3 in the major rivers and aquifers of the Sanjiang Plain. surface water samples from rivers, wetlands and lakes, and 34 groundwater samples. The surface water samples covered almost 2. Study site all the rivers and the major tributaries in the Sanjiang Plain (Fig. 1). The groundwater samples were mainly collected from 2.1 General descriptions Downloaded by CHIBA DAIGAKU on 04 September 2012 domestic or irrigation wells. 17 groundwater samples collected Published on 06 July 2012 http://pubs.rsc.org | doi:10.1039/C2EM30032J The Sanjiang Plain is the alluvial plain within the Songhua River from the wells near the river sampling sites, while another 17 basin, which is located in northeastern part of Heilongjiang groundwater samples were from the central part of the Sanjiang Province, China (Fig. 1). The Xiao Xinganling Mountain, with a Plain. Well information, such as well depth, location and oper- maximum elevation of about 1429 m above sea level, and ating interval were recorded by GPS and questionnaire surveys. Wandashan Mountain, with a maximum elevation of about 831 m, are found along the west side and southwest side of the 3.2 Analytical procedure study area, respectively. The north, east and southeast bound- aries of the study area are the Heilong River, the Wusuli River pH, temperature (T), electrical conductivity (EC), redox poten- tial (Eh) and dissolved oxygen (DO) of the samples were and the Xinkai Lake, respectively. The Songhua River and Naoli À River flow from southeast to northwest through the center of the measured by portable equipment (Horiba, Japan) and HCO3 plain. The Sanjiang Plain has a generally flat topography was determined by acid neutralizing titration on site. The m declining from the southwest to the northeast with a slope samples were immediately filtered through a 0.45 m filter and gradient of about 1 : 5000–1 : 10 000.