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XIAMEN BAY ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY, XIAMEN, CHINA - in collaboration with Professor Luo-Ping Zhang and his research group at Xiamen University |
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XIAMEN BAY ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY, XIAMEN, CHINA - in collaboration with Professor Luo-Ping Zhang and his research group at Xiamen University |
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The coastal region of Xiamen has undergone exceptionally rapid development over recent years, leading to a dramatic rise in pollution and environmental damage (ITTXDP, 1996). The harbor area is highly urbanized and industrialized, receiving large quantities of domestic and industrial wastes (estimated at 200 million tons by 2000), much of it untreated. The Port handles a large and growing rate of shipping, and was identified as a major source of petroleum hydrocarbon contamination to the harbour and adjacent areas ( ITTXDP, 1996). Environmental research on Xiamen coastal waters has focussed mostly on the measurement of contaminant levels. Sediments in Xiamen Harbour have been found to be contaminated by pesticides (DDT), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and non-aromatic hydrocarbons, with highest levels found near the port and Jiulong River Estuary (Hong et al., 1995). In addition, a comparison of the organochlorine contamination in sediments from seven large rivers and estuaries of China found the Jiulong, the major river of the Xiamen region, had the highest levels of HCH (hexachlorocyclohexane) and DDT ( Wu et al., 1999). The main geographical areas of Xiamen coastal waters, as defined in ITTXDP (1996), are Tongan Bay, Maluan Bay, Xiamen Harbour (or West Bay), outer harbour, Jiulong River Estuary and Eastern Channel. The environmental quality of the harbour, Tongan and Maluan areas was reviewed in Klumpp et al. (submitted). The harbour is the most polluted division as measured by inputs of wastes from many diverse sources, high eutrophication and incidence of red tides, reduced biodiversity and abundance of marine life, and elevated levels of most toxic contaminants ( Hong et al., 1995; ITTXDP, 1996; Blackmore et al., 1998). The largest river in the region, Jiulong River, drains an extensive agricultural region and enters Xiamen coastal waters at the southern edge of the harbor. Thus it is expected to be a major source of pesticides to Xiamen coastal waters
As a baseline study, we sampled Xiamen Bay in November 2004,
including collection of surface sediment samples from 9 sampling
stations (Fig. 1a).
Figure 1b shows the preliminary results of total PAHs
concentrations in the sediments.
Figure 1. a) Map of the study area, and b) Total PAH concentrations in the sediments (ppb). |
