Safety assessment of drinking water sources along Yangtze River using vulnerability and risk analysis

Recently, the safety of drinking water sources along Yangtze River Basin is received much attention. But few works have carried out large-scale and all-round safety assessment of drinking water sources on the main stream of the whole Yangtze River Basin. In this work, 97 drinking water sources in 8 provinces of the main stream of the Yangtze River were selected as the objects to clarify the spatial distribution of the safety risk levels of drinking water sources in the whole basin and analyze the causes of drinking water source risks. The results showed that 13.4%, 55.7%, 25.8%, 5.1%, and 0% of the 97 drinking water sources were classified as low, moderate, considerate, high, and very high respectively, according to the safety risk level. This indicated that the safety risk of drinking water sources in the mainstream of Yangtze River is generally low, but there are also a number of high safety risk drinking water sources. And the safety risk degree of the lower and upper reaches in the mainstream of Yangtze River is generally higher than that of the middle reaches. The current situation of drinking water sources along the mainstream of Yangtze River could be attributed to the superposition of human activities and natural background factors. This study could contribute to the government’s targeted management and control of safety risk sources for drinking water sources along the Yangtze River Basin. Graphical abstract