ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Rapid urbanization and industrialization have threatened critically to the city environment. To evaluate the water quality of urban lakes in Beijing, 44 trace elements concentrations of water samples from Beijing urban lakes, aqueducts, groundwater and tap water were measured and analysed. Results showed that, 5 trace elements Pr, Tb, Ho, Tm and In are all under detection limit, 39 trace elements were recorded, 8 trace elements Be, Sm, Dy, Er, Lu, Bi, Th and Hf were rare and only found in a few sample sites. Element Sr concentration in all samples was the highest, ranging from 23.67 to 1223 µg/L, Ba was the second (3.38-169.67 µg/L) and then Li the third (0.441-21.467 µg/L). Trace element concentrations in all investigated water of Beijing urban lakes and aqueducts all met the four quality standards of EQSSW, SSDW, WQSUWS in China, and WHO (2008), implying that they were safe to the residents, tourists and aquatic wildlives. The reason might be that there were few direct human activities like wastewater and irrigation affecting the water quality of urban lakes in Beijing. Moreover, correlation and multivariate statistical analysis showed that except for the water source and products from water-soil interaction with the homogeneous sediment since 22 000 a B. P., the atmospheric dry and wet deposition from dust storm, coal combustion, mining industry, metallurgical industry and automobile exhaust was the main and important source of trace elements in urban lakes in Beijing.
