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The temporal changes of the concentration level of typical toxic organics in the river sediments around Beijing

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Abstract

In this study, the current situation of five types of toxic organics and endocrine disrupters in the sediments of rivers around Beijing, i.e., polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), phthalic acid esters (PAEs), organic chlorinated pesticides (OCPs), estrogens (Es), and bisphenol A (BPA), which included 56 contaminants, was analyzed and compared with that registered by the historical literatures. The ecological risks were also assessed. The total concentration of PAHs, PAEs, OCPs, Es, and BPA ranged from 232.5 ng·g–1 to 5429.7 ng·g–1, 2047.2 ng·g–1 to 18051.5 ng·g–1, 4.5 ng·g–1 to 11.7 ng·g–1, 18.1 ng·g–1 to 105.2 ng·g–1, and 36.3 ng·g–1 to 69.6 ng·g–1, respectively. Among these five types of organic compounds, the concentration levels of PAHs and OCPs have decreased significantly in the last ten years, while those of PAEs and Es had an upward trend compared with the previous studies. BPA still remained at a moderately high level, as it was ten years ago. The risks of the PAEs in all of the sample sites, and fluoranthene, benzo[a]anthrene, and benzo[a]pyrene in the Wenyu River sediment, were relatively high. These results supplemented the database of toxic organics’ concentration levels in the sediments of Beijing rivers.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 21677155 and 46103095) and the Special Fund for Agro-scientific Research in the Public Interest (No. 201503108). This paper was last finished in Research Center for Eco–Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Correspondence to Donghong Wang or Wenjue Zhong.

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Li, Q., Xu, X., Fang, Y. et al. The temporal changes of the concentration level of typical toxic organics in the river sediments around Beijing. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng. 12, 8 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-018-1054-7

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