Abstract
Geogenic arsenic enrichment in soil and river sediments of Tibet compared to its upper crustal abundance has been observed, raising the question whether other trace elements are also enriched and thus may pose ecological risks. Because human activities are limited, the reservoir sediments after the recent construction of the Shiquan dam on the Singe Tsangpo (ST) and the Zam dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo (YT) collect and thus represent material sourced from 14,870 km2 and 157,668 km2 of drainage areas, respectively. Bulk concentrations of the metalloid (As) and 13 metals (Li, Be, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Cs, and Pb) are analyzed for 123 samples from 9 mostly silty sediment cores (depth: 11–20 cm) from the Shiquan Reservoir and for 250 samples from 13 mostly sandy sediment cores (depth: 9–28 cm) from the Zam Reservoir. These elemental concentrations are normalized to the upper crustal Fe abundance of 3.9% to arrive at a regional sediment geochemical background value for each element. The regional background values of most elements in the ST drainage and the YT drainage are comparable with the upper crustal abundance. However, three elements (Li, As, and Cs) in both drainage basins display significant enrichment compared to their respective upper crustal abundance. Sequential leaching of a subset of sediment samples from the ST (n = 18) and YT (n = 29) drainages reveals that chemical fractions of metals and metalloids in these two reservoirs are similar, with most of the elements dominated by the residual fraction with low mobility. Taken together, the ecological risks of the most studied elements in the reservoir sediments are likely low pending further aquatic bioavailability investigations, except that As, Cu, Pb, and Be deserve more attention due to their elevated levels in mobile fractions.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41673137, 41273146); China Geological Survey (No. DD20190534); Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission (No. JCYJ20170817105912601, GJHZ20180411143520274) and the State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry (SKLEG2019713). We are very grateful to Hongqiang Gong, Min Guo from Tibet Center for Disease Control and Prevention and Nima from Shiquan River Hydropower Station for their support during sample collection.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41673137, 41273146); China Geological Survey (No. DD20190534); Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission (No. JCYJ20170817105912601, GJHZ20180411143520274) and the State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry (SKLEG2019713).
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Zhenjie Zhao helped in resources, formal analysis, writing–original draft, writing–review and editing. Shehong Li developed conceptualization, helped in formal analysis, writing–original draft, writing–review and editing. Lili Xue contributed to resources. Jie Liao helped in resources and formal analysis. Jingjing Zhao contributed to resources. Mei Wu performed formal analysis. Mingguo Wang helped in resources. Qiang Yang contributed to writing–original draft. Jing Sun helped in writing–original draft. Yan Zheng designed conceptualization, carried out formal analysis, helped in writing−original draft, writing−review and editing.
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Zhao, Z., Li, S., Xue, L. et al. Abundance and mobility of metal(loid)s in reservoir sediments of Singe Tsangpo and Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet, China: Implications for ecological risk. Environ Geochem Health 43, 3213–3228 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-021-00810-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-021-00810-8