4.7 Article

Anthropogenic rare earth elements in urban lakes: Their spatial distributions and tracing application

Journal

CHEMOSPHERE
Volume 300, Issue -, Pages -

Publisher

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.134534

Keywords

Rare earth elements; Wuhan lakes; Tracer; Point of interest; Anthropogenic Gd; Anthropogenic Sm

Funding

  1. National Natural Science Foundation of China [41863004, U1612442]
  2. National Natural Science Foundation of Guizhou Province, China [U1612442]
  3. The first-class discipline construction project in Guizhou Province-Public Health and Preventive Medicine [2017 [85], GNYL [2017] 007]
  4. Guizhou Science and Technology Support Program [[2021] 465]

Ask authors/readers for more resources

This study investigated the anomalies of anthropogenic rare earth elements (REEs) in urban lakes in Wuhan, China, and examined the relationship between anthropogenic REE concentrations and the surrounding environment. Different sources of anthropogenic REEs, including hospitals, factories, population, urban land, and cropland, were identified using various data analysis methods. A three-dimensional tracer system was established to accurately assess the impact of wastewater treatment plants, hospitals, factories, and agriculture on the lakes.
Anthropogenic activities associated with various new technologies are increasingly disrupting the geochemical cycles of rare earth elements (REEs). For example, samarium (Sm) and gadolinium (Gd) have emerged as microcontaminants in the natural waters of developed areas. Surface water samples of 13 urban lakes were collected in Wuhan, the largest city in central China, with a population of over 11 million. The aim of this study was to examine to what extent REE anomalies occur and the relationship between the concentration of anthropogenic REEs in lakes and the surrounding environment. In this study, based on land-use type and point of interest (POIs) data, buffer extraction, density estimation and Spearman correlation analysis were first proposed to identify different sources of anthropogenic REEs, which mainly included hospitals, factories, population, urban land and cropland. The PAAS-normalized REE patterns indicate that all lake samples display pronounced positive Sm and Gd anomalies, ranging from 5.92 to 19.88 and 1.73 to 14.97, respectively. Spearman correlation analysis showed that hospital density was positively correlated with anthropogenic Gd concentration, and a positive relationship between proportion of cropland and the concentration of anthropogenic Sm. By utilizing Gd-anth, Sm-anth, and the conventional ion ratio (NO3-/Cl-), a three-dimensional tracer system was established, and the system accurately obtained a characterization of the impact of WWTPs, hospitals, factories and agriculture on the lakes. Moreover, the results from this hydrochemical method were consistent with the analysis of geographic information systems, which indicated that this anthropogenic contaminant as a tracer was reliable for analysing the source of urban water pollution.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.7
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available