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Spatial distribution and source apportionment of water pollution in different administrative zones of Wen-Rui-Tang (WRT) river watershed, China

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Abstract

Water quality degradation in river systems has caused great concerns all over the world. Identifying the spatial distribution and sources of water pollutants is the very first step for efficient water quality management. A set of water samples collected bimonthly at 12 monitoring sites in 2009 and 2010 were analyzed to determine the spatial distribution of critical parameters and to apportion the sources of pollutants in Wen-Rui-Tang (WRT) river watershed, near the East China Sea. The 12 monitoring sites were divided into three administrative zones of urban, suburban, and rural zones considering differences in land use and population density. Multivariate statistical methods [one-way analysis of variance, principal component analysis (PCA), and absolute principal component score—multiple linear regression (APCS-MLR) methods] were used to investigate the spatial distribution of water quality and to apportion the pollution sources. Results showed that most water quality parameters had no significant difference between the urban and suburban zones, whereas these two zones showed worse water quality than the rural zone. Based on PCA and APCS-MLR analysis, urban domestic sewage and commercial/service pollution, suburban domestic sewage along with fluorine point source pollution, and agricultural nonpoint source pollution with rural domestic sewage pollution were identified to the main pollution sources in urban, suburban, and rural zones, respectively. Understanding the water pollution characteristics of different administrative zones could put insights into effective water management policy-making especially in the area across various administrative zones.

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Acknowledgments

This research was sponsored by the project of the Science and Technology Department of Zhejiang province (2008C03009), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40901254 and 41171258), the project of the Zhejiang Education Department (Y200909020), and the fundamental research funds for the central universities. The authors would like to express our appreciation to partners in Wenzhou Medical University who have provided us with secondary data and valuable advices.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China

    Liping Yang, Xingmei Liu, Laosheng Wu & Jianming Xu

  2. The Environmental Geographic Information System Laboratory, School of Environmental Science and Public Health, Wenzhou Medical College, Wenzhou, 325000, China

    Kun Mei & Minghua Zhang

  3. College of Life and Environmental Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, 310036, China

    Fan Wang

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  1. Liping Yang
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  2. Kun Mei
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  3. Xingmei Liu
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  4. Laosheng Wu
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  5. Minghua Zhang
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  6. Jianming Xu
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  7. Fan Wang
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Correspondence to Xingmei Liu or Jianming Xu.

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Responsible editor: Hailong Wang

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Yang, L., Mei, K., Liu, X. et al. Spatial distribution and source apportionment of water pollution in different administrative zones of Wen-Rui-Tang (WRT) river watershed, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 20, 5341–5352 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-1536-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-1536-x

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