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In order to investigate the impact of urbanization and industrialization on surface water quality, a pilot study of Panzhihua (攀枝花) mining town was carried out. The urbanization of Panzhihua region was dominated by industry development and population growth. The level of urbanization showed that it was 18.44% in 1965, and reached 45.99% in 1983. Then, it reached 53.71% in 2005, so the urbanization process was very rapid in Panzhihua region. In the process of industrialization, the level of industrialization was fluctuated at around 70% from 1965 to 2005, which was influenced by mining, extracting, and smelting production. In the processes of urbanization, population growth caused an increase in life pollution sources, and an amount of effluents bearing coliform, COD (chemical oxygen demand), NH-N, and BOD (five-day biological oxygen demand) were released into Jinsha (金沙) River, which could cause decline in the surface water quality. While in the processes of industrialization (especially industrial scale expansion), more effluent bearing heavy metals could cause degradation of surface water quality. Thus, the measures, such as adjusting industry structure, optimizing the cleaning technology, and controlling pollution sources, should be enhanced to alleviate the current state of water quality exacerbation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to characterize environmental vanadium distribution, mobility, and bioaccumulation, a total of 55 soil samples and 36 plant samples were collected in four typical land-use districts in Panzhihua region, Southwestern China. Soil samples were analyzed with the modified Community Bureau of Reference (BCR) sequential extraction procedure, and the content of vanadium in soil and plant was determined by ICP-AES. The total content of vanadium was 208.1-938.4 mg kg in smelting area, 111.6-591.2 mg kg in mining area, 94.0-183.6 mg kg in urban park, and 71.7-227.2 mg kg in agricultural area, respectively, while the bio-available content of vanadium was characterized that the polluted areas (mining area 18.8-83.6 mg kg, smelting area 41.7-132.1 mg kg) and the unpolluted area (agricultural area 9.8-26.4 mg kg, urban park 9.9-25.2 mg kg). In addition, the contamination degree of vanadium in soil was smelting area > mining area > agricultural area ≈ urban park. Moreover, the fraction of vanadium in each sequential extraction characterized that residual fraction > oxidizable fraction > reducible fraction > acid soluble fraction. The bioaccumulation of vanadium from soil to plant was weak to intermediate absorption. Therefore, some countermeasures such as soil monitoring and remediation should be to take in the sooner future, especially in mining and smelting area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]