Temporal and Spatial Distribution and Fluorescence Spectra of Dissolved Organic Matter in Plateau Lakes: A Case Study of Qinghai Lake

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) has a great impact on the main pollution indicators of lakes (such as chemical oxygen demand, COD). Therefore, DOM is the research basis for understanding the meaning of the water environment and the laws of the migration and transformation of pollutants. Qinghai Lake is one of the world’s typical inland plateau lake wetlands. It plays important roles in improving and regulating the climate and in promoting a virtuous regional ecological cycle. In recent years, with the acceleration of urbanization and the rapid development of tourism, under the background of climate change, and with grassland degradation and precipitation change, the whole basin of Qinghai Lake has been facing great ecological pressure. In order to comprehensively explore the water environment of Qinghai Lake and to protect the sustainable development of the basin, a systematic study was carried out on the whole basin of Qinghai Lake. The results show the following: (1) from 2010 to 2020, the annual average value of CODCr in Qinghai Lake fluctuated in the range from class III to class V according to the surface water environmental quality standard, showing first a downward trend and then an upward trend. (2) The concentration of CDOM in Qinghai Lake had obvious temporal and spatial changes. (3) The spatial distribution of the total fluorescence intensity of FDOM in water was also different in different seasons. However, in the three surveys, the area with the highest total fluorescence intensity of FDOM in the water body appeared near Erlangjian in the south of Qinghai Province, indicating that anthropogenic sources are the main controlling factors of dissolved organic matter in the lake.