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Risk Assessment of Groundwater Organic Pollution Using Hazard, Intrinsic Vulnerability, and Groundwater Value, Suzhou City in China

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Abstract

There is growing evidence of increasing pollution threats to groundwater caused by anthropogenic activities. Risk assessment has proven a useful tool for groundwater management, environmental planning, and decision making in numerous research projects. Based on the origin–pathway–target model, a quantitative evaluation model was established in this study. This study shows that most areas of Suzhou are under medium-to-very high vulnerability to organic pollution, for which the media of the aquifer and the depth of groundwater are responsible. The risk-assessment map shows that the very high-risk areas were mostly distributed in the southeast along with small areas on the northern bank of the river. However, on the groundwater value-weighted risk map, the very high-risk regions were concentrated in the north. Human activities in the industrial area strongly influenced the-risk of organic pollution to groundwater as the areas with very high risks were found mainly in the industrial area. Areas containing very high groundwater value and basic risk class generated a very high value-weighted groundwater contamination risk class. The result of the validation showed that this model was appropriate for groundwater risk assessment for organic pollution in this area. It should be noted that the value-weighted risk map was completely different from the one of the risk map.

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Acknowledgements

This research was conducted under the “organic pollution risk assessment and prediction of shallow groundwater in typical land subsidence area based on fuzzy theory” project (State Key Laboratory of Ground Fissures). The authors are thankful to the staff at the Geological Survey of Jiangsu Province for their assistance in the field.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Science, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, Nanjing, 210000, China

    Haijie Li

  2. Key Laboratory of Groundwater Resources and Environment, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, China

    Haijie Li, Xipeng Yu, Wenjing Zhang & Ying Huan

  3. College of Environment and Resources, Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, China

    Haijie Li & Wenjing Zhang

  4. Key Laboratory of Earth Fissures Geological Disaster, Ministry of Land and Resources, Nanjing, 210018, China

    Jun Yu & Yan Zhang

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  1. Haijie Li
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Correspondence to Wenjing Zhang.

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Li, H., Yu, X., Zhang, W. et al. Risk Assessment of Groundwater Organic Pollution Using Hazard, Intrinsic Vulnerability, and Groundwater Value, Suzhou City in China. Expo Health 10, 99–115 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12403-017-0248-8

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