Identifying source information after river chemical spill occurrences is critical for emergency responses. However, the inverse uncertainty characteristics of this kind of pollution source inversion problem have not yet been clearly elucidated. To fill this gap, stochastic analysis approaches, including a regional sensitivity analysis method, identifiability plot and perturbation methods, were employed to conduct an empirical investigation on generic inverse uncertainty characteristics under a well-accepted uncertainty analysis framework. Case studies based on field tracer experiments and synthetic numerical tracer experiments revealed several new rules. For example, the release load can be most easily inverted, and the source location is responsible for the largest uncertainty among the source parameters. The diffusion and convection processes are more sensitive than the dilution and pollutant attenuation processes to the optimization of objective functions in terms of structural uncertainty. The differences among the different objective functions are smaller for instantaneous release than for continuous release cases. Small monitoring errors affect the inversion results only slightly, which can be ignored in practice. Interestingly, the estimated values of the release location and time negatively deviate from the real values, and the extent is positively correlated with the relative size of the mixing zone to the objective river reach. These new findings improve decision making in emergency responses to sudden water pollution and guide the monitoring network design.
This paper analyses the contents and species distributions of rare earth elements (REEs) in the water-suspended particulate-sediment
system of the Baotou section of the Yellow River, China, with known anthropogenic REE input from industrial discharges. The
major forms of REEs were suspended and dissolved in the mainstream and the tributaries of the Baotou section, respectively.
The concentrations of the dissolved and suspended REEs had the same trends in the overlying water along the mainstream, which
increased from the Seqi section (site A) to the mouth of the Sidaosha River (site D), reaching a maximum value at site D,
and tending to decrease thereafter. The contents of REEs in sediment cores showed enrichment with light rare earth elements
(LREEs). The bound to carbonates and to Fe–Mn oxides are the major forms of REE in the secondary phase and the REE exhibited
LREE enrichment pattern and moderate Eu depletion in suspended particulates and surface sediments. The contents and species
distributions of REEs in the water-suspended particulate-sediment system of the Baotou section suggest that the anthropogenic
source of REEs from Baotou city have enhanced REE accumulation to the Baotou section. This information is important for predicting
possible pollution resulting from anthropogenic REE input into rivers. 相似文献
