Which Pollutants Should Be Prioritized for Control in Multipollutant Complex Contaminated Groundwater of Chemical Industrial Parks?

Increasing chemical pollutants in groundwater within
chemical industrial
parks pose a critical environmental challenge, necessitating innovative
strategies to address contaminants with the highest risks to environmental
health and ensure sustainable management. Herein, we investigated
277 chemical pollutants from 367 sampling points across 10 rounds,
totaling 1,016,590 measured data points. An environmental health prioritization
index (EHPI) was proposed and applied to integrate multiple criteria:
occurrence, migration, persistence, bioaccumulation, acute and chronic
toxicity, and health effects to rank the target pollutants for priority
control. Thirty pollutants were classified as the top-priority group
and 81 as high-priority, with metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,
and haloalkanes ranking highest, while emerging contaminants of concern
ranked lower. The top 6 pollutants were beryllium, benzo(g,h,i)perylene,
nickel, benzo(a)pyrene, chrysene, and arsenic. The EHPI method was
compared against five other weighting schemes, including AHP (analytic
hierarchy process), entropy, AHP-entropy, AHP-TOPSIS (technique for
order preference by similarity to ideal solution), and entropy-TOPSIS.
EHPI effectively captured and integrated the results from more simplistic
prioritization schemes. Overall, 38 pollutants are recommended for
inclusion in the priority control list, focusing on the top-priority
group and high detection and exceedance categories. This framework
provides critical guidance for focused monitoring, assessment, and
control of the highest-risk groundwater pollutants, supporting more
effective environmental and human health protection.