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A method of assessing the depth of contaminated sediments that should be removed in lakes: a case study of Tangxun Lake, China

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Abstract

The depth of contaminated sediments constrains the water environment of large shallow lakes and can affect shallow lake water quality through sediment resuspension and nutrient release. Although such effects can be avoided by sediment dredging methods, we still cannot precisely quantify the depth of sediment dredging. Therefore, we used organic index method, pollution index method and potential ecological risk evaluation to evaluate the contamination status of split samples of in situ sediments layer by layer, and established a comprehensive contamination index evaluation method for layer-by-layer sediments, then combined with the contamination release characteristics of split samples to assess the contamination degree of the sediments obtained. The results show that the content of nitrogen and phosphorus in the surface layer of Lake Townsend sediments is generally higher than that in the middle and bottom sediments, and the heavy metals also satisfy this pattern, which is consistent in the sediments of both east and west regions. We also simulated the release process of nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients in the in situ sediment of Tangxun Lake in 2019, and the experimental results showed that the risk of nitrogen and phosphorus nutrient release in the sediment was mainly concentrated in the surface and middle layers, and the risk of elemental nitrogen release was significantly greater than that of phosphorus release. Finally, a comprehensive evaluation was carried out to obtain the desilting depth of the sediments in Lake Townsend, and it can be determined that the recommended desilting depth is about 20 cm for West Lake and 30 cm for East Lake. The results show that the recommended dredging depth can be determined based on this method, which provides an important scientific basis for sediment dredging in Tangxun Lake and even provides a new paradigm for sediment dredging depth estimation in similar large shallow lakes.

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Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this manuscript. The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

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Acknowledgements

This study is supported by the State Key Laboratory of Eco-hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology (Grant No. 2018KFKT-7), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2042020kf0004) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52109099).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, Hubei, China

    Wenguang Luo & Jing Lu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region of China, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an, 710048, China

    Wenguang Luo & Bo Ming

  3. College of Hydraulic Science and Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, 225009, China

    Senlin Zhu

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  1. Wenguang Luo
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  2. Jing Lu
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  4. Bo Ming
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Contributions

This research was done at Wuhan University with strong support from the Tangxun Lake administration in Wuhan. We have given guidance and help to the collection of sediments in our experiment. All authors have contributed either to the experiments and their analyses or the writing of this manuscript, or both.

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Correspondence to Wenguang Luo.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this manuscript. All co-authors participated in the study and agreed to publish the manuscript.

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Luo, W., Lu, J., Zhu, S. et al. A method of assessing the depth of contaminated sediments that should be removed in lakes: a case study of Tangxun Lake, China. Environ Geochem Health 45, 473–489 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-021-01176-7

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