Screening for over 1000 organic micropollutants in surface water and sediments in the Liaohe River watershed

- The reliability and usefulness of high throughout screening method was evaluated.
- The massive qualitative data help unveil pollution profiles among different sites.
- The semi-quantification results agree well with those from target analysis.
- The high throughout method is proven be a valuable tool in watershed management.

High throughout screening method has gained attractive prospects because it offers a fast and effective approach to obtain a holistic picture of organic micropollutant (OM) pollution in a site specific environment. However, reliability and usefulness of the generated data sets for OM pollution profiles and occurrence levels have not been fully evaluated. In this paper, we screened 1030 OMs in surface water and sediments from the selected rivers of the Liaohe River watershed to (1) examine the usefulness of using qualitative data to gain insights into source identification and (2) further evaluate the reliability of the semi-quantification results in a filed study. The results showed that 81 and 89 OMs at concentrations up to 5670 ng/L and 6714 ng/g were identified in surface water and sediments, respectively. Qualitative data could be used to identify the similarity (or dissimilarity) of pollution sources at different locations for surface water, which could provide insights for source back tracking of water contamination. Accuracy tests showed that our semi-quantification results agree well with those from previously reported values and our target analysis. Though our results for the majority of newly quantified OMs need to be further confirmed, we have demonstrated that this method is suitable for understanding the pollution characteristics and occurrence levels of OMs in the environment for environmental scientists and managers.