Significant Dynamic Disturbance of Water Environment Quality in Urban Rivers Flowing through Industrial Areas

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Author,

The article reported the effect of industrial pollutants on urban river dynamics, Here are potential comments to be addressed before considering the article for publication 

1. The title seems to be revised as the article talks only about the nutrients and heavy metal effect but not the industrial-specific pollutants such as specific chemical pollutants..

2. The abstract: Only Cd was studied, so why not the other heavy metals. The intro is very general, no specific info was written on the research topic.

3.  Methodology: Authors should mention the depth to reach and collect the sediments in different sites

4. Results: In line 212, I think the author was talking about the figure but mentioned it as a table, 

5. The author compares WPI and TN, but the results are different than what the author mentioned in lines 212-214. WPI is lowest in Jan, and TN in Match, both are different. Figure 4, march and April values do not have SD values.

6. Line 249, need a p-value to compare the significance, please include it

7. Why author choose only these heavy metals

8. Authors did not mention the concentration of heavy mental in sediment, where initially highlighting the sediments are sources of pollutants and sink, this is very important to correlate the results.

9. Authors mention that metals are not stable in water but the state of Cd in water and how it is released from sediments or industrial waters, I means the state of Cd is important for bioavailability 

10. Needs to improve conclusion, need specific points from the research not general

 

 

Author Response

Ref. No.: Water-2602918R1

Dear editors and reviewers,

 

On behalf of all of the coauthors, we would like to thank all of you for your comments and helpful suggestions concerning our manuscript entitled “Significant dynamic disturbance of water environment quality in urban rivers flowing through industrial areas”. The comments were all valuable for revising and improving the quality of our manuscript as well as in providing guidance regarding our future work. We have studied the comments carefully and have revised the manuscript accordingly, which we hope meets your approval and the standards of the journal. Our responses to the comments are provided below, as is a summary of the main revisions to the manuscript.

We hope that the revisions and accompanying responses have made our manuscript suitable for publication in Water. We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

 

Di Li, Ph.D., Shiliang Liu, Ph.D.

• mail: [email protected] (D. Li); [email protected] (S.Liu)

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The following are our point-to-point responses to your comments.

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To Reviewer #1:

1. The title seems to be revised as the article talks only about the nutrients and heavy metal effect but not the industrial-specific pollutants such as specific chemical pollutants.

Response: On behalf of all of the coauthors, we would like to thank you for your professional suggestions regarding our manuscript. In our study, we not only studied the trophic status of the river as well as the heavy metal content but also studied other parameters of the quality of the water environment [in accordance with the National Standard of the People's Republic of China: Environmental Quality Standard for Surface Water (GB 3838-2002)]. Hence, we have modified the title to "Significant dynamic disturbance of water environment quality in urban rivers flowing through industrial areas".

2. The abstract: Only Cd was studied, so why not the other heavy metals. The intro is very general, no specific info was written on the research topic.

Response: Thank you for your professional comments. In the revised manuscript, we added another element, Cr, to the sediment to the Abstract. We added specific content related to the topic of this article in the introduction section from lines 89-95.

3. Methodology: Authors should mention the depth to reach and collect the sediments in different sites

Response: Thank you for your professional comments. We mentioned on line 153 that the depth of collecting river sediment is 5-10 cm.

4. Results: In line 212, I think the author was talking about the figure but mentioned it as a table.

Response: Thank you. We have revised the description of the relevant information in the manuscript.

5. The author compares WPI and TN, but the results are different than what the author mentioned in lines 212-214. WPI is lowest in Jan, and TN in Match, both are different. Figure 4, march and April values do not have SD values.

Response: Thank you. We have modified accordingly. Specific values for TN and WPI (annual maximum and minimum values in February and March, respectively) have been added to the manuscript.

6. Line 249, need a p-value to compare the significance, please include it

Response: Thank you for your constructive comment. We have added relevant information in response to your request in the manuscript.

7. Why author choose only these heavy metals.

Response: Thank you. These heavy metals were chosen because of previous research. In the previous literature review of this study, we found that the major heavy metal pollutants in the seven major water systems and most large lakes in China were the eight heavy metal (Pb, Cd, Cr, As, Hg, Cu, Fe, Mn) elements mentioned in this study (Bai et al., 2012; Rui et al., 2008; Cui et al., 2011). Moreover, we found in our preliminary preexperimental tests that the main metal ions in the rivers we studied are those mentioned above.

8. Authors did not mention the concentration of heavy mental in sediment, where initially highlighting the sediments are sources of pollutants and sink, this is very important to correlate the results.

Response: Thank you. We described the heavy metal concentration of the sediment as Table 9 and added it to the manuscript.

9. Authors mention that metals are not stable in water but the state of Cd in water and how it is released from sediments or industrial waters, I means the state of Cd is important for bioavailability.

Response: Thank you for your professional comments. Indeed, the release of the heavy metal cadmium from the sediment depends largely on its different chemical forms (acid soluble, reducible, oxidizable, and residual). The change in form has a great influence on the chemical activity, potential toxicity, bioavailability and migration of heavy metals. The distribution of cadmium in sediments is heavily influenced by complex factors, including the physical and chemical properties of the particles themselves, as well as overlying water conditions, including organic matter, carbonate, and microbial behavior (Krishnankutty et al., 2019). Previous research has shown that the acid soluble state is the most sensitive to the heavy metal form under the action of a disturbing force, and a high intensity disturbance can promote the oxidation of the oxidizable heavy metal state. The disturbance will decompose the large particles into small particles, and the heavy metals will be released again after the resuspension process (Liu X Z et al., 2020).

10. Needs to improve conclusion, need specific points from the research not general.

Response: Thank you. We have carefully revised the conclusion according to your request.

REFERENCES

Aizaki M, Otsuki A, Fukushima T, Kawai T, Hosomi M, Muraoka K. Application of modified Carlson’s trophic state index to Japanese lakes and its relationships to other parameters related to trophic state. Reseach Report from the National Institute for Environmental Studies, 1981, 23: 13–31.

Bai J H, Xiao R et al.  Arsenic and heavy metal pollution in wetland soils from tidal freshwater and salt marshes before and after the flow-sediment regulation re-gime in the Yellow River Delta, China [J]. Journal of Hydrology, 2012, 450: 244-253.

Cui B, Zhang Q et al. Analyzing tropics transfer of heavy metals for food webs in the newly-formed wetlands of the Yellow River Delta, China [J]. Environmental Pollution, 2011, 159(5): 1297-1306.

Krishnankutty N, Idris M, Hamzah F M, et al. The chemical form and spatial variation of metals from sediment of Jemberau mining region of Tasik Chini, Malaysia [J]. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 2019, 26(24): 25046-25056.

Liu X Z, Liu Q Q et al. Effects of hydraulic perturbation on rerelease of heavy metals from estuarine sediments [J]. Journal of Ecology and Rural Environment. 2020, 36: 1460-1467.

Rui J, Qu L C et al. Effects of soil use along Yellow River basin on the pollution of soil by heavy metals [J]. Europe Pubmed Central . 2008, 28(4): 934-936.

 

We appreciate your favorable consideration and insightful comments.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

11.       Add Latest references of year 2023 and 2022.

22.       Add literature review table.

33.       Compared data with EPA standards

44.       Upload a similarity report for your manuscript.

55.       Use GRAMMARLY for polishing your manuscript grammar. Even its free version also can be useful for text editing.

66.       Significant Figures must be check and equal in the reported data.

77.       Figure 3 represent for comparative study better to change it in bar diagram.

88.       Improve conclusion showing the concentration of metals and toxicity with reference to EPA levels.

99.       Add references

·         Heliyon 8(1): (2022)e08809DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e08809

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844022000974

·                  ·         Radiat Prot Dosimetry. 2020 Jul 13;189(2):234-241. doi: 10.1093/rpd/ncaa035. PMID: 32195552.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Should be checked by GRAMMARLY

Author Response

Ref. No.: Water-2602918R1

Dear editors and reviewers,

 

On behalf of all of the coauthors, we would like to thank all of you for your comments and helpful suggestions concerning our manuscript entitled “Significant dynamic disturbance of water environment quality in urban rivers flowing through industrial areas”. The comments were all valuable for revising and improving the quality of our manuscript as well as in providing guidance regarding our future work. We have studied the comments carefully and have revised the manuscript accordingly, which we hope meets your approval and the standards of the journal. Our responses to the comments are provided below, as is a summary of the main revisions to the manuscript.

We hope that the revisions and accompanying responses have made our manuscript suitable for publication in Water. We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

 

Di Li, Ph.D., Shiliang Liu, Ph.D.

• mail: [email protected] (D. Li); [email protected] (S.Liu)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following are our point-to-point responses to your comments.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Reviewer #2:

1. Add Latest references of year 2023 and 2022.

Response 1 and 9: Thank you. After careful study of the literature you recommended, we added it to the reference. At the same time, we have replaced the older literature with those from 2017 to 2023.

2. Add literature review table.

Response: Thank you for your comments. Done accordingly, please see Appendix A.

3. Compared data with EPA standards.

Response: We sincerely thank you for your comments. China's water standards are similar or stricter than most of the EPA's limits. We compared the water environmental standards of the EPA, the European Union, Japan and China. A table was made to highlight the differences between them (part of parameters). As seen from the comparison of the above table, China's water quality standards stipulate more microbial indicators and are much stricter than those of the United States in various important indicators (especially toxicological indicators). This is due to the lack of basic research on water quality benchmarks in the formulation of water quality standards in China, so it mainly refers to the pollutant detection items and standard values of developed countries. We hope you will be satisfied with this reply.

 

 

Table 1. Comparison of water quality indexes in different regions

Index	Limit
	China GB5749-2006	USA EPA (MCL)	Japan	EU
1. Microbiological index
Total coliform group (MNP/100 ml or CFU/100 ml)	Negative	5	1	-
Thermostable coliform (MNP/100 ml or CFU/100 ml)	Negative	-	-	-
Escherichia coli (MNP/100 ml or CFU/100 ml)	Negative	-	-	0
2. Toxicological index
As (mg/L)	0.01	0.01	0.01	0.01
Cd (mg/L)	0.005	0.005	0.01	0.005
Cr VI (mg/L)	0.05	0.1	0.05	0.05
Pb (mg/L)	0.01	0.015	0.01	0.01
Hg (mg/L)	0.001	0.002	0.0005	0.001
Se (mg/L)	0.01	0.05	0.01	0.01
Prussiate (mg/L)	0.05	-	-	0.05
Fluoride (mg/L)	1.0	4.0	0.8	1.5
Nitrate (mg/L)	10	10	10	50
Carbon tetrachloride (mg/L)	0.002	0.005	0.002	-
Trichloromethane (mg/L)	0.06	-	-	-
NOTE: “-” Indicates that no limit have been found for this item.

4. Upload a similarity report for your manuscript.

Response: Thank you. The similarity report has been uploaded as an attachment. The result of the similarity check of our manuscript is 11%. Please check the attached file.

5. Use GRAMMARLY for polishing your manuscript grammar. Even its free version also can be useful for text editing.

Response: Thank you for your constructive comment. At the time of writing this manuscript, we had already signed a contract with a native English language editorial agency, which is not convenient to change. However, we will take your suggestions into full consideration and give priority to them in future paper writing and editing.

6. Significant Figures must be check and equal in the reported data.

Response: We have carefully checked all the figures and tables. We described the heavy metal concentration of the sediment as Table 9, replaced Figures 1, 3 and 5 into bar charts, and added them to the manuscript.

7. Figure 3 represent for comparative study better to change it in bar diagram.

Response: Thank you for your professional comment. Figure 3 has been replaced with a bar chart according to your requirements.

8. Improve conclusion showing the concentration of metals and toxicity with reference to EPA levels.

Response: Thank you. We have carefully revised the manuscript not only in the conclusion but also in the Materials and Methods section according to your request.

Once again, we are grateful for your positive comments and suggestions.

 

Appendix A. Literature review table
First author	Country/region	Object	Major pollutant (threat)	Results	Year (duration)	Journal
V.H. Smith	USA	Links between nutrients and aquatic productivity	Nitrogen and phosphorus	water quality problems correlated with the supply rates of N and P to the receiving waters	2006	Limnology and Oceanography
Laura Monteagudo	Spain	Mechanism for river eutrophication	Nitrate	Irrigated cropland was  responsible for eutrophication in streams	2001-2009	Water Research
Sala O. E.	Argentina	Ranking of the importance of drivers of change	-	Biotic exchange is much more important for freshwater ecosystems	2000	Science
Lee C.W.	South Korea	Inexpensive materials for phosphorus removal	Phosphorus	Activated oyster shell is a sustainable precipitant for phosphate removal	2006-2009	Journal of Cleaner Production
Chen, R.	China	The quality of reclaimed wastewater	Algal growth and pathogen risk	Algal growth was affected by reclaimed wastewater replenishment	2015	Journal of Hazardous Materials
Wang Y.	China	The distribution characteristics of heavy metals between river water and surface sediments	Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn, Cd, Hg and As	Aquatic organism density correlated with heavy metal content in surface sediments	2019-2020	China Environmental Science
Costas N.	Spain	Impacts of mining activities due to heavy metal contamination in rivers	Cu, Hg and Au	Determined sensitive taxa could be considered as reliable indicators of metal pollution in the mining areas	2015	Ecological Indicators
Paithankar J. G.	India	oxidative stress-induced cellular response following heavy metal exposure	Cd, Hg, As and Pb	Heavy metal-induced oxidative stress and its connection with different signaling pathways are complicated	2019-2020	Chemosphere
Deng T.A.	China	Forewarn the potential harmful algal blooms	Harmful algal blooms	Artificial neural networks and support vector machine could ensure robustness to learn complicated relationship between algal dynamics and different coastal environmental variables	2020-2021	Journal of Environmental Management
Neal C.	England	Chlorophyll-a concentration variations in two rivers	Reactive phosphorus, organic carbon, particulate nitrogen	Input of canal and reservoir waters during the growing period may be chlorophyll-a concentration control	2004-2006	Science of the Total Environment
Brankov J.	Serbia	Water quality and pollution using the combined physico-chemical WPI index	BOD5, CODMn, Cu, Fe, Mn, Hg, Ni, Zn, Cd, nitrites, nitrates, ammonium	increased values of the organic pollution indicators in the study rivers are the result of uncontrolled domestic wastewater discharge	1993-1996; 2006-2009	Archives of Environmental Protection
Baudou F. G.	Argentina	Responses of some energy metabolism variables in Cnesterodon decemmaculatus adults exposed to cadmium	Cadmium	Cadmium-exposed showed a significant decrease in food assimilation and condition factor at the end of the exposure.	2015-2016	Ecotoxicology
Bere T.	Zimbabwe	The effects of heavy metal pollution on benthic macroinvertebrate communities	Ca, TP, TDS, Cr , K	Mg/Ca ratio, Ca2+, Cr3+ and K+ were important metals structuring benthic macroinvertebrate communities in study streams	2014-2015	Science of the Total Environment
Jahan Z.	Pakistan	impact of these processes of vehicular industry on the environment	Fe, Co, Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, and Zn	All analyzed metals are frequently present in different color pigments	2020-2021	Heliyon

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf