Communication Improves Environment Protection andCooperation
Assistant Professor, School of Environment, Tsinghua University（清華大学，助理教授）

Miao Li（李Last year, I was recommended by Chinese
Association of Environmental Sciences (CAES)
as candidate of JSWE-IDEA Water Environment
International Exchange Award for the 48 th Japan
Society on Water Environment (JSWE) Annual
Conference. It is my great honor to attend thisconference, and accept this award. Every time I
came to Japan, I was impressed by the environment,
especially the water and the air. As you know,
nowadays, contamination of water and air is a widespread environment problem in China. Therefore,
I always hope that I have more opportunities tocommunicate with other researchers from different
countries including Japan. JSWE give me a precious
opportunity to communicate with Japanese
researchers. In those three days, I have communicatedwith many researchers and learned a lot. It was awonderful and meaningful three days to me. I greatly
appreciated the CAES and JSWE. I have confidence
that the cooperation between Chinese and Japanese
researchers will be a great help for not only theenvironment protection but also the friendshipbetween the Chinese and Japanese people in thefuture.
In my presentation, I talked about the investigation
and risk assessment of emerging contaminants during
groundwater recharge by reclaimed water in China.
In recent years, a lot of researchers have focused on
emerging contaminants in surface water as it is easier
to monitor than groundwater in some respects andemerging contaminant in surface waters as these arelikely to contain greater concentrations discharges.
However, the research on the fate of emerging
contaminant in groundwater in China is almost
unknown. In China, most wastewater after treated by
WWTPs was discharged into water body such as river,which required to determine the discharge impact
on the extent of migration of emerging contaminant
through soil and unsaturated zone and their potential
to leach to groundwater. In this research, theVol. 37（A） No. 6（2014）淼）occurrence of more than 60 emerging contaminants ofdiﬀerent group was studied. The aim of this study was
to investigate emerging contaminants from WWTPs.
The level of the occurrence of different compounds
in the groundwater near the discharge site has also
been studied in order to assess the treated waterdischarge impact into the aquifer. The study results
showed that in the investigated 16 cities, reclaimed
water and groundwater contamination have diﬀerent
degrees of emerging contaminants. EDCs, PFOCs,and antibiotics were detected in almost all samples,while PBDEs were not detected in most cities bothin reclaimed water and groundwater. Although there
were detections in groundwater, there were morecompounds detected in the surface water samples,
perhaps indicating that more effluents from WWTPs
are reaching surface water. At least one compoundin all 7 compounds (EDCs), E1, E2, EE2, E3, BPA, NP,and OP have been detected in groundwater in mostsamples. BPA constitute the most detected substanceamong EDCs, in frequency and concentration, and in
the groundwater concentration is still relatively high.
Further studies in the occurrence and fate of BPA
in groundwater are needed to predict their behavior
under field conditions. Results of the study indicate
although at least one contaminant in each group havebeen detected in reclaimed water and groundwater,
not all active compounds monitored and consumed
will end up in the environment. Although due to theshort monitoring period, seasonal variations associatedto pattern consumption have not been observedin samples, the results presented here are a firstattempt to provide groundwater data from such alarge group of compounds in China. The presence of
these contaminants cannot be underestimated because
they may act stealthily to impart subtle changes thathave large effects on ecosystems. Further studies
addressing persistence and transport of detectedcompounds in the aquifer media are required to assess
fate and distribution in soil and groundwater.

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