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Distribution patterns of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans in sediments of the Xiangjiang River, China

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Abstract

We investigated the occurrence and distribution patterns of 2,3,7,8-substituted polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) in six sediment samples from the Xiangjiang River, Hunan Province, People’s Republic of China. Total concentrations of PCDD/Fs ranged from 876 to 497,759 (mean 160,766) ng/kg dw, the highest of which exceeded that have ever been reported for sediment samples. World Health Organization total toxicity equivalent (WHO-TEQ) concentrations in three out of six samples were significantly higher than the guidance level (21.5 ng WHO-TEQ/kg dw) suggested by Canadian Sediment Quality Guideline. A predominance of octachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (OCDD) was observed with an average contribution of 90.8% to the total PCDD/F concentrations, while 1,2,3,4,6,7,8-heptachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (HpCDD) was the major contributor to the PCDD/F WHO-TEQ concentrations in most of the sites. Such high levels of OCDD and HpCDD may be attributed to the presence of PCP/PCP-Na pollution, although MB-WW, agricultural straw open burning, and boilers–hazardous wastes were also the potential sources of PCDD/Fs. This is the first report for the concentrations and congener profiles of PCDD/Fs in sediment samples from the Xiangtan, Zhuzhou, and Changsha sections of the Xiangjiang River, providing scientific evidence for establishing priorities to reduce ecological risks posed by PCDD/Fs in the rapidly developing areas of Hunan Province and elsewhere.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Alessio Mengoni and Dr. Chaosheng ZHANG for their effort in reading through the entire manuscript and offering corrections and suggestions. Financial support of this study was provided by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Public Interest (ZX-200809-06), National High Technology Research and Development Program 863 of China (SQ2009AA06XK1482462), and Major Projects on Control and Rectification of Water Body Pollution (2008ZX07211-0010).

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  1. Ministry of Environmental Protection, South China Institute of Environmental Sciences, Guangzhou, 510655, People’s Republic of China

    Zhiliang Chen, Bing Yang, Jiahua Dong & Xiaochun Peng

  2. Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Firenze, Via Romana 17, 50125, Florence, Italy

    Alessio Mengoni

  3. School of Life Sciences and State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, People’s Republic of China

    Bing Yang

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  1. Zhiliang Chen
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Correspondence to Xiaochun Peng.

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Chen, Z., Yang, B., Mengoni, A. et al. Distribution patterns of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans in sediments of the Xiangjiang River, China. Environ Monit Assess 184, 7083–7092 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-011-2481-0

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