Heavy Metal Pollution in Water of Rivers and Lake in Tibet by ICP-MS

Abstract

Tibet has been called the roof of the world, the third of the earth, snowy region and so on. It is not only the rivers source and ecological source for South Asia and Southeast Asia, so environment of Tibet should be paid more attention. In this paper, the concentration of heavy metal elements (Fe, Cu, Fe, Zn, Se, Mo, Cd, Pb, V, Cr, Mn) of the different rivers in Tibet was detected totally by water sample analysis in high-flow period by inductive coupled plasma-mass spectrometer. The concentrations of Fe, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Mo, Cd, Pb, V, Cr and Mn were 0 μg/mL-0.06 μg/mL, 0.41 ng/mL-1.11 ng/mL, 0-1.90 ng/mL, 0.16 ng/mL-3.71 ng/mL, 0.01 ng/mL-0.17 ng/mL, 0.69 ng/mL-1.49 ng/mL, 0 ng/mL-0.02 ng/mL, 0 ng/mL-0.06 ng/mL, 0.06 ng/mL-0.47 ng/mL, 0.05 ng/mL-0.19 ng/mL and 0.05 ng/mL-1.52 ng/mL respectively. The results showed that Lhasa river contained the highest concentration of Cu, As and Pb in the four kinds of water, Pearl lake cotained the highest concentration of Fe, Zn, V, Cd and Mn, Nyang river and Brahmaputra river contained lower heavy metals, which should be relative to higher population density around Lhasa river and Pearl lake. Overall, heavy metal pollution in rivers in Tibet is not serious, but densely populated areas should pay more attention to environmental problems.