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Recent oxygen depletion in the Pearl River Estuary, South China: geochemical and microfaunal evidence

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Abstract

We examined a suite of geochemical and microfaunal indicators in 210Pb-dated sediment cores from the Pearl River Estuary, South China, to determine the historical course of oxygen conditions. The results revealed a substantial increase in nutrient elements and primary production in the sediment over the last 3 decades, which could be interpreted as a recent increase in the extent of eutrophic condition in the Pearl River Estuary. Furthermore, total foraminifers decreased abruptly in abundance while the species Ammonia beccarii, which is tolerant of low-oxygen conditions and high organic fluxes, showed a marked increase in relative abundance after the 1970s. These faunal changes implied that significant deterioration had occurred in the bottom water oxygen conditions since the late 1970s. This degradation could be caused by the increased nutrient and organic loading to the estuarine system, which is likely related to the rapid urbanization and industrial development in the Pearl River Delta during this period.

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Acknowledgments

We appreciate the assistance of Kaizhi Li in sediment coring, Chunlian Liu and Jie Wu in benthic foraminifera counting, and Weilan Xia in sediment dating. Two anonymous reviewers and Prof. Toshiyuki Hibiya gave detailed and constructive suggestions, which greatly improved the original manuscript. This study was funded by the Project of Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KZCX2-YW-Q07), the National 908 Special Project (Grant No. GD908-JC-06, GD908-02-02), and the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41076069, 40776086).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China

    Feng Ye, Xiaoping Huang, Xia Zhang, Dawen Zhang, Yanyi Zeng & Lei Tian

  2. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Feng Ye, Yanyi Zeng & Lei Tian

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  1. Feng Ye
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  2. Xiaoping Huang
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  3. Xia Zhang
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Correspondence to Xiaoping Huang.

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Ye, F., Huang, X., Zhang, X. et al. Recent oxygen depletion in the Pearl River Estuary, South China: geochemical and microfaunal evidence. J Oceanogr 68, 387–400 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10872-012-0104-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10872-012-0104-1

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