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Boron accumulation in soil, sediment, and plant of wastewater-irrigated areas in Tianjin, China

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the accumulation of boron (B) in the soils, sediments, and plants in the wastewater (treated and untreated) irrigation farmlands. Twelve sites of soils and four sites of sediments were collected in two wastewater irrigation areas of Tianjin, China. Our results show that the long-term irrigation of wastewater induced B accumulation in the soils (81 − 90 mg kg−1 on average) and sediments (112 − 150 mg kg−1 on average). The readily available B fractions, salt extractable B and water extractable B, accounted for more than half of the extractable B. The plant available B in the soils exceeded toxic levels of most sensitive crops but B in plant leaves did not reach the thresholds. This study indicates that long-term irrigation of wastewater would induce excess accumulation of B in the soils of the farmlands and might pose a toxicity risk to the plants.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Xiaojiao He at the College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University for the laboratory assistance.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Project of China (2019YFC1804403), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42177373), the Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin, China (19JCYBJC24000), and the Ministry of Education of China (T2017002).

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  1. Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria (Ministry of Education), Tianjin Key Laboratory of Environmental Remediation and Pollution Control, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Qian Zhao, Rui Zhang, Lei Wang, Hongwen Sun & Chunguang Liu

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  1. Qian Zhao
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  2. Rui Zhang
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Contributions

Qian Zhao contributed to sample collection and determination and prepared the manuscript draft. Rui Zhang performed data analysis. Lei Wang contributed to the draft revision. Hongwen Sun contributed to the conception and design. Chunguang Liu supervised the study and revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Chunguang Liu.

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Zhao, Q., Zhang, R., Wang, L. et al. Boron accumulation in soil, sediment, and plant of wastewater-irrigated areas in Tianjin, China. Environ Monit Assess 195, 110 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10723-3

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