Ecological Risk Assessment of Organochlorine Pesticides and Polychlorinated Biphenyls in Coastal Sediments in China

Abstract

Although the ecological risk of emerging contaminants is currently a research hotspot in China and abroad, few studies have investigated the ecological risk of pesticide pollutants in Chinese coastal sediments. In this study, nine pesticide pollutants included in the “List of New Key Pollutants for Control (2023 Edition)” issued by the Chinese government were used as the research objects, and the environmental exposure of pesticide pollutants in China’s coastal sediments was analyzed. The baseline sediment quality criteria were deduced using the balanced distribution method, and a multi-level ecological risk assessment of pesticides in sediment was performed. The results showed that the nine pesticide pollutants were widespread in Chinese coastal sediments, with concentrations ranging from 0.01 ng·g−1 to 330 ng·g−1. The risk quotient assessment showed that endosulfan and DDT posed medium environmental risks to the Chinese coastal sediment environment, and PCBs posed medium risks in some bays of the East China Sea. The semi-probabilistic, optimized semi-probability evaluation and joint probability curve (JPC) assessments all show that endosulfan and DDT pose a certain degree of risk to the environment.