Characterization of chromophoric dissolved organic matter and relationships among PARAFAC components and water quality parameters in Heilongjiang, China

Chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) is an important optically active substance that can transports nutrients and pollutants from terrestrial to aquatic systems. Additionally, it is used as a measure of water quality. To investigate the source and composition of CDOM, we used chemical and fluorescent analyses to characterize CDOM in Heilongjiang. The composition of CDOM can be investigated by excitation-emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence and parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC). PARAFAC identified four individual components that were attributed to microbial humic-like (C1) and terrestrial humic-like (C2–4) in water samples collected from the Heilongjiang River. The relationships between the maximum fluorescence intensities of the four PARAFAC components and the water quality parameters indicate that the dynamic of the four components is related to nutrients in the Heilongjiang River. The relationships between the fluorescence component C3 and the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD 5 ) indicates that component C3 makes a great contribution to BOD 5 and it can be used as a carbon source for microbes in the Heilongjiang River. Furthermore, the relationships between component C3, the particulate organic carbon (POC), and the chemical oxygen demand (COD Mn ) show that component C3 and POC make great contributions to BOD 5 and COD Mn . The use of these indexes along with PARAFAC results would be of help to characterize the co-variation between the CDOM and water quality parameters in the Heilongjiang River.