Variations of DOM quantity and compositions along WWTPs-river-lake continuum: Implications for watershed environmental management.

Wastewater effluent makes up an increasingly large percentage of surface water supplies, but the impacts of discharge of effluent organic matter (EfOM) on receiving riverine and lacustrine dissolved organic matter (DOM) is still largely unknown. In the present study, we investigated variations of DOM quantity and quality along wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs)-river-lake continuum during drought periods, and made a tentative discussion on its implications for watershed environmental management. We used dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations, UV absorption coefficients and excitation-emission-matrixs (EEMs) fluorescence spectroscopy combined with fluorescence regional integration (FRI) to characterize EfOM and riverine and lacustrine DOM along WWTPs-river-Chaohu Lake continuum.