The Danjiangkou reservoir was selected to provide the source water for the middle routes of the South to North Water Transfer Project, which has provoked many environmental concerns. To date, investigations of water contamination of the source water of the Danjiangkou reservoir with organic micro-pollutants have been limited. This study was conducted to identify and rank organic contaminants that pose risks in the Danjiangkou reservoir. To this end, the Chemical Hazard Evaluation and Manage- ment Strategies (CHEMS-1) approach was adapted to integrate the deconvolution technology of qualitative identifying contaminants for site-specific environmental matrices. The samples were screened for the presence of 1093 contaminants using deconvolution technologies and the hazard values of the identified contaminants were calculated using the adapted CHEMS-1 approach accord- ing to their hazardous properties and occurrence in source water. The results showed that 46 contaminants from 1093 targets were present in Danjiangkou water, 23 of which appeared at frequencies higher than 50%, and 15 of which were identified as priorities. Over half (53%) of the high- ranked contaminants were polycyclic aromatic hydrocar- bons (PAHs), with chrysene ranked highest on the list. Health risk assessment of the top-ranked PAHs was conducted and revealed that cancer risks of PAHs detected in the source water of Danjiangkou to different populations ranged from 10-7 to 104, indicating a low cancer risk to consumers. The results of this study indicated that the adapted CHEMS-1 approach was feasible for site-specific screening of organic contaminants to identify and rank potential priority pollutants.
Taste and odor (T&O) problems in drinking water frequently occur because of many compounds present in the water, of which trans-1,10-dimethyl-trans-9-decalol (geosrnin) and 2-methylisoborneol (MIB) are well-known. In this study, a fast and effective method was established for simultaneous determination of 10 T&O compounds, including geosmin, MIB, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA), 2-methylbenzofuran, 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (IPMP), 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (IBMP), cis-3-hexenyl acetate, trans,trans-2,4-heptadienal, trans, cis-2,6-nonadienal, and trans-2-decenal in water samples by headspace solid-phase microextraction (SPME) coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. An orthogonal array experimental design was used to optimize the effects of SPME fiber, extraction temperature, stirring rate, NaC1 content, extraction time, and desorption time. The limits of detection ranged from 0.1 to 73 ng/L were lower than or close to the odor threshold concentrations (OTCs). All the 10 T&O compounds were detected in the 14 water samples including surface water, treatment process water and tap water, taken from a waterworks in Lianyungang City, China. MIB and geosmin were detected in most samples at low concentration. Six T&O compounds (IPMP, IBMP, trans,cis-2,6-nonadienal, 2-methylbenzofuran, trans-2-decenal, and TCA) were effectively decreased in water treatment process (sedimentation and filtration) that is different from cis-3-hexenyl acetate, MIB and geosmin. It is noted that the TCA concentrations at 15.9-122.3 ng/L and the trans,cis-2,6-nonadienal concentrations at 79.9-190.1 ng/L were over 10 times higher than their OTCs in tap water. The variation of the analytes in the all water samples, especially distribution system indicated that distribution system cannot be ignored as a T&O compounds source.
Xichao ChenQian LuoShengguang YuanZi WeiHanwen SongDonghong WangZijian Wang