PAHs Source Identification in Sediments and Surrounding Soils of Poyang Lake in China Using Non-Negative Matrix Factorization Analysis

Abstract

Identifying sources of soil and sediment PAHs and apportioning their contributions are key in building effective pollution abatement strategies, especially for Poyang Lake—the largest freshwater lake in China. PAHs were detected in all the monitored soil and sediment samples under three land use types, with the concentrations varying by area, ranging from moderate to relatively high. The order of PAHs content in different the land use types was as follows: industrial soil > grassland soil > agricultural soil. Although agricultural soil was dominated by LMW PAHs, industrial grassland soils were dominated by HMW PAHs. Based on factor analysis, non-negative matrix factorization analysis was effective in non-negative constrained skew rotation, especially for clear and interpretable source analysis of PAHs.