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Abstract

From 2000 to 2003, water samples were seasonally collected from the coastal area near nuclear power plants (NPPs) I and II to assess the ecological impact of thermal effluent on the water quality. The water quality in the investigated area during the survey periods was as follows: pH, 7.87-8.40; dissolved oxygen, 3.61-7.11 mL/L; chlorophyll a, 0.07-1.9 µg/L; nitrite, 0.02-7.42 µM; nitrate, 0.3- 15.4 µM; phosphate, 0.02-1.48 µM; and silicate, 0.84-46.82 µM. The concentrations of nutrients in the spring and winter seasons were relatively higher than those in the summer and fall seasons. The concentrations of chlorophyll a showed the reverse distribution. Overall, the water quality in the study area completely followed the “A level” seawater standard of EPA regulation, suggesting that the coastal seawater adjacent to both NPPs was not significantly affected by the thermal effluent from both NPPs. Data on phytoplankton, zooplankton and water quality were combined and analysed using the principal component analysis to identify the factors influencing the marine ecology in the study area. Results showed that the percentages of the first principal component and the first two principal components generally accounted for more than 50% and 75%, respectively. This result suggested that the system of the study area was mainly affected by two unspecified parameters. It was also found that water temperature, chlorophyll a, phytoplankton and zooplankton almost were located in the same axis in the plot of the first two principal component loadings, which differed from the plot of nutrients. This finding implied that water temperature was probably a more important factor in influencing the biomass of phytoplankton and zooplankton than the nutrients in the study area.

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