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Evaluation of potential factors affecting deriving conductivity benchmark by utilizing weighting methods in Hun-Tai River Basin, Northeastern China

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Abstract

Specific conductivity is an increasingly important stressor for freshwater ecosystems. Interacting with other environmental factors, it may lead to habitat degradation and biodiversity loss. However, it is still poorly understood how the effect of specific conductivity on freshwater organisms is confounded by other environmental factors. In this study, a weight-of-evidence method was applied to evaluate the potential environmental factors that may confound the effect of specific conductivity on macroinvertebrate structure communities and identify the confounders affecting deriving conductivity benchmark in Hun-Tai River Basin, China. A total of seven potential environmental factors were assessed by six types of evidence (i.e., correlation of cause and confounder, correlation of effect and confounder, the contingency of high level cause and confounder, the removal of confounder, levels of confounder known to cause effects, and multivariate statistics for confounding). Results showed that effects of dissolved oxygen (DO), fecal coliform, habitat score, total phosphorus (TP), pH, and temperature on the relationship between sensitive genera loss and specific conductivity were minimal and manageable. NH3-N was identified as a confounder affecting deriving conductivity benchmark for macroinvertebrate. The potential confounding by high NH3-N was minimized by removing sites with NH3-N > 2.0 mg/L from the data set. Our study tailored the weighting method previously developed by USEPA to use field data to develop causal relationships for basin-scale applications and may provide useful information for pollution remediation and natural resource management.

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Acknowledgements

This research was financially supported by the National Water Pollution Control and Management Technology Major Projects (2012ZX07501001) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41571050). We thank Dr. Rui Xia for the assistance with the manuscript preparation and valuable comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012, China

    Xiaobo Jia, Qian Zhao, Fen Guo, Shuqin Ma, Yuan Zhang & Xiaomiao Zang

  2. Laboratory of Riverine Ecological Conservation and Technology, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012, China

    Xiaobo Jia, Qian Zhao, Fen Guo, Shuqin Ma, Yuan Zhang & Xiaomiao Zang

  3. College of Water Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Xiaobo Jia & Qian Zhao

  4. College of Environment, Liaoning University, Shenyang, 110036, China

    Xiaomiao Zang

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  1. Xiaobo Jia
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  2. Qian Zhao
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  3. Fen Guo
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  4. Shuqin Ma
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  5. Yuan Zhang
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Correspondence to Yuan Zhang.

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Jia, X., Zhao, Q., Guo, F. et al. Evaluation of potential factors affecting deriving conductivity benchmark by utilizing weighting methods in Hun-Tai River Basin, Northeastern China. Environ Monit Assess 189, 97 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-017-5802-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-017-5802-0

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