Xiangshan Bay is a semi-enclosed bay and an important mariculture zone in the Zhejiang Province of China. Xiangshan Bay recently received concerns due to the potential hazards caused by the industries along the bay on the cultured seafood safety. In this work, a ship yard observed with oil leakage into seawater was selected as a point-source of organic pollutants, the distribution and transport of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in Xiangshan Bay was investigated. Results showed that the ship yard caused a clear pollution plume of PAHs, the characteristic pollutants of mineral oils, with the highest concentrations in seawater and particulate of 55.82 ng L-1 and 2235.04 ng g-1, respectively. Among the PAHs, phenanthrene and pyrene, mostly from lubricant and diesel, were the main compounds, coinciding with the leakage fact of the ship yard. For sediment samples, the concentration of PAHs near the ship yard was significantly higher than any other sites, reaching 1489.60 ng g-1, and the main contribution was the gravity settlement of some high molecular weight PAHs such as indeno[1,2,3-cd]pyrene (IND) and benzo[ghi]perylene (BghiP). In contrast, due to the weak relation with mineral oils, PCBs showed no obvious distribution trend in the bay, and the highest concentrations are 10.17 ng L-1, 79.72 ng g-1 and 124.33 ng g-1 in seawater, particulate and sediment samples, respectively. The comparison PAHs and PCBs’ distribution demonstrates clearly a point-source impact of the ship yard operation on the Xiangshan Bay environment. Health risk assessment indicated the ship yard emission caused substantial PAHs ecological risks to its adjacent and downstream water environment. The point source emissions in the semi-enclosed bays such as Xiangshan Bay should be paid close attention to due to strong transport effect.

Impacts of point-source emission on the distribution of organic pollutants in the water environment of Xiangshan Bay, China

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