Abstract
Despite the prevalence of discharge of large volumes of heavy-metal-bearing seawater from coal-fired power plants into adjacent seas, studies on the associated ecological risks remain limited. This study continuously monitored concentrations of seven heavy metals (i.e. As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb, and Zn) in surface seawater near the outfall of a coal-fired power plant in Qingdao, China over three years. The results showed average concentrations of As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb, and Zn of 2.63, 0.33, 2.97, 4.63, 0.008, 0.85, and 25.00 μg/L, respectively. Given the lack of data on metal toxicity to local species, this study investigated species composition and biomass near discharge outfalls and constructed species sensitivity distribution (SSD) curves with biological flora characteristics. Hazardous concentrations for 5% of species (HC5) for As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb, and Zn derived from SSDs constructed from chronic toxicity data for native species were 3.23, 2.22, 0.06, 2.83, 0.66, 4.70, and 11.07 μg/L, respectively. This study further assessed ecological risk of heavy metals by applying the Hazard Quotient (HQ) and Joint Probability Curve (JPC) based on long-term heavy metal exposure data and chronic toxicity data for local species. The results revealed acceptable levels of ecological risk for As, Cd, Hg, and Pb, but unacceptable levels for Cr, Cu, and Zn. The order of studied heavy metals in terms of ecological risk was Cr > Cu ≈ Zn > As > Cd ≈ Pb > Hg. The results of this study can guide the assessment of ecological risk at heavy metal contaminated sites characterized by relatively low heavy metal concentrations and high discharge volumes, such as receiving waters of coal-fired power plant effluents.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation, China (No. ZR2014DZ001) and National Marine Public Welfare Research Project (No. 2013418043).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Methodology and data analysis were performed by YF. Material preparation was performed by ZZ. Data collection and was performed by YR, JW, XZ, HT and SL. The first draft of the manuscript was written by YF. ZZ and SR gave review and editing. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Feng, Y., Ru, Y., Wang, J. et al. Ecological risk assessment of heavy metals in desulfurized seawater discharged from a coal-fired power plant in Qingdao. Ecotoxicology 33, 239–252 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-024-02735-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-024-02735-1