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Hydrochemical anomaly of drinking waters in some endemic Kashin-Beck disease areas of Tibet, China

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Abstract

Kashin-Beck disease (KBD) has been identified in some areas of Tibet, China. In this work, the Sangri, Nimu, Xietongmen and Gongbujiangda counties of Tibet were selected as case study areas to understand the relationship between KBD occurrence and chemical composition of drinking water. 30 drinking water samples were collected in the KBD-affected and KBD-unaffected villages of these four counties, and the hydrochemistry of endemic and non-endemic samples was compared. The results show that HCO3–Ca, HCO3–Ca·Na, and HCO3·SO4–Ca are the major hydrochemical types of water samples from both KBD-affected and KBD-unaffected villages. Although Se deficiency in environment has been widely regarded as an important cause of KBD, the Se concentrations in the drinking water samples do not correlate with KBD occurrence in the study areas. However, there are significant differences between the concentrations of Al, Fe, Na, Mn, Cd, Co, Cu, Ba and Mo in the endemic drinking water samples and those in the non-endemic samples, indicating that these constituents may be related to the prevalence of KBD in the study areas.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40830748), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Cradle Plan, No. CUGL100406), the Ministry of Education of China (111 project), and the Open Fund of MOE Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology (No. BGEGF200813). The manuscript benefits a lot from the valuable comments of the editor and an anonymous reviewer. Prof. Eric Reardon of University of Waterloo also helps to improve the manuscript.

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Qinghai Guo & Yanxin Wang

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  1. Qinghai Guo
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  2. Yanxin Wang
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Correspondence to Qinghai Guo.

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Guo, Q., Wang, Y. Hydrochemical anomaly of drinking waters in some endemic Kashin-Beck disease areas of Tibet, China. Environ Earth Sci 65, 659–667 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-011-1113-x

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