Traceability of Phreatic Groundwater Contaminants and the Threat to Human Health: A Case Study in the Tabu River Basin, North China

Jing Zhang, Zilong Liao (), Jing Jin, Yanyan Ni, Jian Xu, Mingxin Wang, Zihe Wang, Yiping Zhao and Yuanzheng Zhang ()
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Jing Zhang: Yinshanbeilu Grassland Eco–Hydrology National Field Observation and Research Station, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China
Zilong Liao: Yinshanbeilu Grassland Eco–Hydrology National Field Observation and Research Station, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China
Jing Jin: Yinshanbeilu Grassland Eco–Hydrology National Field Observation and Research Station, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China
Yanyan Ni: State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Management and Pollution Control, Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China, Nanjing 210042, China
Jian Xu: State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Management and Pollution Control, Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China, Nanjing 210042, China
Mingxin Wang: Yinshanbeilu Grassland Eco–Hydrology National Field Observation and Research Station, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China
Zihe Wang: Yinshanbeilu Grassland Eco–Hydrology National Field Observation and Research Station, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China
Yiping Zhao: Yinshanbeilu Grassland Eco–Hydrology National Field Observation and Research Station, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China
Yuanzheng Zhang: State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Management and Pollution Control, Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China, Nanjing 210042, China

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 15, 1-18

Abstract: Groundwater is the main clean water resource in northern China, and its quality is critical for both human health and social sustainable development. Due to complex anthropogenic and/or geogenic processes, the sources of groundwater contaminants are not easy to determine. The Tabu River Basin, located in northern China, is an agriculture and pasture interlaced area in which phreatic groundwater is the predominant water resource for domestic and agricultural purposes. Groundwater with abnormally high levels of NO 3 − , F − , and TDS was observed here based on 87 groundwater samples collected from the phreatic aquifer in 2022. In this study, hydrogeochemical and isotopic methods were used to trace groundwater contaminants in the phreatic aquifer, and a risk assessment was conducted to analyze their threat to human health. The results indicated that NO 3 − in the phreatic groundwater primarily originated from manure, the high concentration of TDS was highly associated with irrigation, and the enrichment of F − was mainly controlled by geogenic factors, including alkaline condition, competitive adsorption, the dissolution of fluorine-bearing minerals, and cation exchange. A principal component analysis (PCA) showed that both anthropogenic (PC1, 50.7%) and geogenic (PC2, 19.9%) factors determined the quality of the phreatic groundwater in the study area. The human health risk assessment demonstrated that 98.9%, 92.0%, and 80.5% of the groundwater samples exceeded the permissible limit of the total noncarcinogenic risk for children, adult females, and adult males, respectively. The monitoring results from 2022 to 2023 suggested that phreatic groundwater contamination could not be mitigated through natural attenuation under the existing external pressures. Measures need to be taken to decrease the contamination of phreatic groundwater and enhance the groundwater sustainability in the Tabu River Basin. The findings of this study can provide a reference for sustainable groundwater development in the Tabu River Basin and other arid and semi-arid regions worldwide.

Keywords: groundwater contamination; fluoride; nitrate; hydrogeochemistry; isotope; groundwater sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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