Abstract
Anthropogenic groundwater arsenic (As) pollution is common in many aquifers in Southwest China. It is concerned that long-term random disposal of As smelting slag could induce the transport of high-As groundwater into previously uncontaminated aquifers. Here, we used HELP-MODFLOW-MT3DMS model simulations to integrate the percolation, groundwater flow, and solute transport processes at an aquifer at site scale, constrained by weather, hydrogeology, and monitoring data. Our simulations provide a new method framework of the simulated percolation by HELP model and have induced As spatiotemporal distribution in the aquifer. According to the HELP model simulation results, percolation volume accounts for 24% of rainfall over 18 years. This work determined that the As discharge trend was fitted by double-constants kinetics based on the leaching experiment. And this work calculates total mass distribution of As in the aquifer over 18 years. We have found that the sustained As pollution relies on the rainfall that acts as the primary contributor of elevated As concentrations. Model simulation results suggest that 51.70% of the total As mass (1.96 × 104 kg) was fixed in low permeability solid media. The total As mass discharged into groundwater reached 9.3 × 103 kg, accounting for 24.68%. The accumulative outflow mass of arsenic was 8.0 × 103 kg, accounting for 21.62%.
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Data Availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, Weihua Cui, upon reasonable request.
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This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program, China (2019YFC18003500).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by ZH, FL, WC, GC, and JY. ZH: conceptualization, methodology, software, investigation, formal analysis, writing—review and editing, writing original—draft.
FL: methodology, experiment, formal analysis, visualization.
WC: conceptualization, writing—review and editing, project administration, supervision, funding acquisition.
GC: conceptualization, software, methodology, writing—review and editing, supervision.
JY: supervision, resources. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ZH and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Huang, Z., Li, F., Cui, W. et al. Simulating arsenic discharge flux at a relic smelting site in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 12094–12111 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-31695-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-31695-y