Correcting a major error in assessing organic carbon pollution in natural waters

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dc.contributor.authorJiao, Nianzhi
dc.contributor.authorLiu, Jihua
dc.contributor.authorEdwards, Bethanie
dc.contributor.authorLv, Zongqing
dc.contributor.authorCai, Ruanhong
dc.contributor.authorLiu,Yongqin
dc.contributor.authorXiao, Xilin
dc.contributor.authorWang, Jianning
dc.contributor.authorJiao, Fanglue
dc.contributor.authorWang, Rui
dc.contributor.authorHuang, Xingyu
dc.contributor.authorGuo, Bixi
dc.contributor.authorSun, Jia
dc.contributor.authorZhang, Rui
dc.contributor.authorZhang, Yao
dc.contributor.authorTang, Kai
dc.contributor.authorZheng, Qiang
dc.contributor.authorAzam, Farooq
dc.contributor.authorBatt, John
dc.contributor.authorCai, Wei-Jun
dc.contributor.authorHe, Chen
dc.contributor.authorHerndl, Gerhard J.
dc.contributor.authorHill, Paul
dc.contributor.authorHutchins, David
dc.contributor.authorLaRoche, Julie
dc.contributor.authorLewis, Marlon
dc.contributor.authorMacIntyre, Hugh
dc.contributor.authorPolimene, Luca
dc.contributor.authorRobinson, Carol
dc.contributor.authorShi, Quan
dc.contributor.authorSuttle, Curtis A.
dc.contributor.authorThomas, Helmuth
dc.contributor.authorWallace, Douglas
dc.contributor.authorLegendre, Louis
dc.date.accessioned2023-12-04T20:57:41Z
dc.date.available2023-12-04T20:57:41Z
dc.date.issued2021-04-14
dc.descriptionThis article was originally published in Science Advances. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc7318. Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science.
dc.description.abstractMicrobial degradation of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in aquatic environments can cause oxygen depletion, water acidification, and CO2 emissions. These problems are caused by labile DOC (LDOC) and not refractory DOC (RDOC) that resists degradation and is thus a carbon sink. For nearly a century, chemical oxygen demand (COD) has been widely used for assessment of organic pollution in aquatic systems. Here, we show through a multicountry survey and experimental studies that COD is not an appropriate proxy of microbial degradability of organic matter because it oxidizes both LDOC and RDOC, and the latter contributes up to 90% of DOC in high-latitude forested areas. Hence, COD measurements do not provide appropriate scientific information on organic pollution in natural waters and can mislead environmental policies. We propose the replacement of the COD method with an optode-based biological oxygen demand method to accurately and efficiently assess organic pollution in natural aquatic environments.
dc.description.sponsorshipWe thank the three anonymous reviewers who provided very useful suggestions, comments, and criticisms on our manuscript. Funding: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (projects 91751207 and 41861144018) and the International Science Partnership Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (121311KYSB20190029-2) to N.J.; the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFA0605800 to Q.Z., 2016YFA0601400 to Y.Z., and 2016YFA0601101 to K.T.); China Ocean Mineral Resources R & D Association (DY135-E2-1-04) to N.J.; the scientific investigation on the Qinghai Tibet Plateau (2019QZKK020110 and 2019QZKK0503) to N.J. and Y.L.; the German Academic Exchange Service DAAD (#57429828) from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to H.T.; The Leverhulme Trust (grant RPG-2017-089) and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) (grants NE/R000956/1 and NE/K00168X/1) to C.R.; the U.K. NERC (grant NE/R011087/1) to L.P.; and the National Science Foundation EPSCoR (award no. 1757353) to W.-J.C. Author contributions: N.J. conceived the research. J.L., Z.L., F.J., J.W., R.C., R.W., J.S., B.G., and Y.L. collected water samples from the fields and Aquatron experiments and measured the COD and BOD data. X.X., Z.L., X.H., J.S., and N.J. collected the literature data. N.J., J.L., and B.E. conducted the Optode-based BOD experiments and analysis. R.C., C.H., and Q.S. conducted the FT-ICR MS measurements and data analysis. N.J. and L.L. wrote the paper with contributions from all the coauthors, including R.Z., Y.Z., K.T., Q.Z., F.A., J.B., W.-J.C., G.J.H., P.H., D.H., J.LR., M.L., H.M., L.P., C.R., C.A.S., H.T., and D.W. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All the COD and BOD data and related information on sampling and data mining are given in Materials and Methods, fig. S1, and tables S1 to S3. The mass spectrometry data are available on PANGAEA (doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.910007).
dc.identifier.citationNianzhi Jiao et al. ,Correcting a major error in assessing organic carbon pollution in natural waters.Sci. Adv.7,eabc7318(2021).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.abc7318
dc.identifier.issn2375-2548
dc.identifier.urihttps://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/33647
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherScience Advances
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Internationalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
dc.subjectclean water and sanitation
dc.titleCorrecting a major error in assessing organic carbon pollution in natural waters
dc.typeArticle

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