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TECHNICAL REPORTS

Surface Water Quality

Chemical and Isotopic Compositions of the Minjiang River, A Headwater Tributary of the Yangtze River

^a State Key Lab. of Environmental Geochemistry, Inst. of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang, Guizhou 550002, PR China
^b Dep. of Geosciences, Osaka City Univ., Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka 558-8585, Japan

^* Corresponding author (xdlee2002{at}163.com).

Received for publication December 20, 2006. We describe the anthropogenic impacts on the major dissolved elements (Cl^–, NO₃^––N, SO₄^2–, and Na⁺) in the water from the Minjiang River (a headwater tributary of the Yangtze River) and upper Yangtze River in relation to increasing human activity. The major element chemistry and hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur isotopic compositions were investigated. When the Minjiang River flows through the populated Sichuan Basin, the concentrations of Cl^–, NO₃^––N, SO₄^2–, and Na⁺ gradually increase. The increasing SO₄^2– in the highly polluted Minjiang River had high ³⁴S values (+6.3 to approximately +13.6), implicating the anthropogenic sources of sulfur from air pollutants, domestic wastewater, industrial effluents, and agricultural fertilizers. The water quality of the upper Yangtze River does not worsen after receiving the Minjiang River because the water from the lightly polluted Jinshajiang River contributes most of the total flux in the Yangtze River. However, these rivers deserve attention and further research because the Yangtze River is the most important river in China in terms of water quality.