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Published on: July 10, 2015
Status of aluminium in environmental compartments contaminated by acidic mine water
Wenzhou Lu1, Yingqun Ma, Chuxia Lin
1South China Institute of Environmental Science, Guangzhou 510655, China.
Abstract:
Investigations were conducted to characterize aluminium in the affected stream and soils downstream of a mine site discharging acidic mine water. The water-borne Al exhibited a highly non-conservative behaviour at water pH below 3.8 in the 0-3.9 km reach and a much more conservative behaviour in the reaches with higher water pHs downstream of the 3.9 km station. The concentration of water-borne Al was higher at the medium flow event than at the flood event in the 0-9 km reach while the opposite was observed for the 16-56 km reach. Transport of Al associated with suspended materials was only observed during the flood event. The amount of Al carried by per unit weight of suspended particles was smaller in the 0-16 km reach than in the 25-56 km reach. The sediment-borne Al increased downstream with maximum Al accumulation occurred in the 25-29 km reach. The residual Al dominated Al fractions in the streambed sediments. The NH(4)Cl-extractable Al in the affected soils decreased with increasing distance from the acidic irrigation water source. In contrast, both the water-extractable and total Al in the soils showed no clear distribution pattern. The NH(4)Cl-extractable Al was closely correlated with soil acidity while neither total Al nor water-extractable Al was correlated with soil acidity. The vertical distribution of NH(4)Cl-extractable Al was regulated by pH with certain influence from soil clay abundance.
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