Chemodiversity of coastal seawater dissolved organic matter shaped by wastewater treatment plant effluent in Tokyo Bay, Japan

Abstract

The wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) effluent can affect the chemodiversity of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the aquatic systems. In this study, Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS) was employed to reveal the effluence of WWTPs on the chemodiversity of coastal seawater DOM in Tokyo Bay, Japan. The average number of compounds identified in the background group with minor anthropogenic perturbation was 63.9% for the coastal seawater samples. Compared with the background samples, CHOS compounds were the predominant fraction of DOM in some coastal seawater receiving vast effluent from WWTPs. Additionally, the artificial sweetener sucralose was identified in coastal seawater samples. The intensity percentages of CHOS molecules in the coastal seawater linearly increased with the number of received WWTPs (R² = 0.786, P < 0.05). These findings suggested that DOM molecular composition in Tokyo Bay coastal seawater had been highly influenced by upstream WWTPs effluents and highlighted the great potential of FT-ICR MS in tracing anthropogenically derived molecular signatures in the environments.