Vertical records of sedimentary PAHs and their freely dissolved fractions in porewater profiles from the northern bays of Taihu Lake, Eastern China

Influence of Industrialization and Environmental Protection on Environmental Pollution: A Case Study of Taihu Lake, China

“…The correlation coefficient of Cd with the industrial output value, energy consumption, and total population is 0.881, 0.789, and 0.609, respectively; the correlation coefficient of BaP with the industrial output value, energy consumption, and total population is 0.923, 0.825, and 0.639, respectively, and all show strong significance ( p < 0.01). After the 2000s, the concentrations of Cd and BaP no longer showed a positive correlation with industrial output, energy consumption, and total population, but there was a negative correlation to some extent; that is, the concentration of pollutants decreased with the growth of industrial output value, energy consumption, and total population, which coincided with previous results [15,16,27].…”

“…Many studies [15,16,43,44] have found that the development of industry has indeed brought about increasingly serious environmental pollution, and environmental protection has to some extent curbed the deterioration of the environment. Wan et al [15] studied the historical changes of heavy metal concentrations in the sediments of lakes in Western China, and he found that under the influence of industrial development since the Reform and Opening-Up in 1978 in China, heavy metals in the ambient atmosphere began to increase in Lake Gonghai.…”

“…However, in the 21st century the atmospheric heavy metals remained at a relatively high level and this status likely continued or may even have become worse in the following years until the government carried out new stricter management standards for the atmospheric environment. Lei et al [16,43,44,45] studied the historical changes of pollutant concentrations in the sediments of Eastern Taihu, Changjiang, and Liaodong Bay and considered that 2000 was the turning point of the environmental quality change. This trend is basically consistent with the results of this paper.…”

“…Pollutants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are represented by benzopyrene (BaP) [5,6,7,8,9,10,11] and the heavy metal contaminant cadmium (Cd) [12,13,14], pose serious threats to our environment and life due to their strong toxicity and carcinogenicity. In the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century, both the government and people in general began to realize the importance of the environment; as such, environmental protection was strengthened and a series of legal measures for environmental protection were enacted [15,16], as shown in Table 1.…”

Spatial Occurrence and Sources of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Sediments Drive the Ecological Risk of Taihu Lake, China

“…The values of ∑ 16 PAHs in different regions were calculated, and the proportions of different monomers of PAHs were analyzed. Figure 3 showed that the concentration of ∑ 16 PAHs in the ZB lake area was much higher than in the other regions, and the same research results have appeared many times in previous studies 35,36 . The sources of agricultural, industrial, and domestic sewage in the surrounding watershed of ZB were higher than the other locations 37 , resulting in higher PAHs concentrations than other areas.…”