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Articles

Changes in Environmental Profiles of Cancer Villages: A Case Study of Aizheng Cun in China

Pages 200-212 | Received 13 Dec 2018, Accepted 16 Aug 2020, Published online: 07 Jan 2021
 

Abstract

Cancer villages, or popularly called Aizheng Cun (癌症村) in Chinese, are a new phenomenon after the economic reform in China. This study aims to investigate the degree to which the changes in land use and land cover (LULC) degraded the water quality in cancer villages with a focus on Shenqiu County in Henan Province, one of the most notorious cancer villages in China. Changes in LULC and vegetative content on water surfaces and their spatial relationships were profiled using land surface remotely sensed data. The study finds that along with the considerable expansion of built environment and farmland over thirty years (1987–2017), the mean of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) on water surfaces, a proxy for surface water biomass, increased dramatically (from −0.11 to 0.34). Moreover, around 80 percent of the newly fabricated built environment and 74 percent of the new farmland occurred in close proximity (within 1 km) to the water bodies with increased NDVI. Because vegetative content on water surfaces was used as a possible indicator for water quality degradation in water quality, the findings could support the assumption that wastewater discharges from anthropogenic activities contribute to the degrading water quality in cancer villages.

癌症村是中国经济改革出现的一种新现象。本文研究土地利用和土地覆盖(LULC)的变化在何种程度上导致了癌症村水质的恶化。研究区为中国河南省沈丘县, 该县有中国最著名的癌症村。利用遥感数据, 本文研究了LULC和水体表层植物量的变化、以及它们之间的空间关系。采用水体表面归一化植被指数(NDVI)做为水体表层生物量指数。1987至2007年, 随着人造环境和农业用地的急剧扩张, 水体表面的平均NDVI有很大变化(-0.11上升到0.34)。约80%新人造环境和74%新农业用地靠近高NDVI水体(1公里以内)。以水体表层植物量做为水质退化指标, 本文可能证实了人类废水排放导致癌症村水质退化的假设。

Las aldeas del cáncer, o Aizheng Cun (癌症村), como se conocen popularmente en chino, son un fenómeno nuevo posterior a la reforma económica de China. Este estudio tiene el propósito de investigar el grado con el que los cambios en uso del suelo y en la cobertura de la tierra (LULC) han degradado la calidad del agua en las aldeas del cáncer, centrando el interés en un caso del Condado Shenqiu de la Provincia de Henan, una de las aldeas del cáncer más notorias de China. Los cambios en los LULC y en el contenido vegetal de las superficies hídricas, y sus relaciones espaciales, se perfilaron mediante el uso de datos de percepción remota de la superficie terrestre. El estudio encuentra que junto a la considerable expansión del entorno construido y de la tierra agrícola durante treinta años (1987–2017), la media del Índice Normalizado en la Diferencia de Vegetación (NDVI) en las superficies hídricas, un proxy de la biomasa de la superficie acuosa, se incrementó dramáticamente (de –0.11 a 0.34). Aún más, alrededor del 80 por ciento del entorno construido nuevo y el 74 por ciento de la nueva tierra agrícola ocurrieron en proximidad muy cercana a los cuerpos de agua (dentro de 1 km) con los LULC incrementados. Debido a que el contenido vegetal de las superficies hídricas se usó como posible indicador de la degradación de la calidad del agua, los descubrimientos podrían respaldar el supuesto de que las descargas de aguas de desecho derivadas de las actividades antropogénicas contribuyen a degradar la calidad del agua en las aldeas del cáncer.

Acknowledgments

I thank Joseph Ortiz for his guidance on specific sections of this article, as well as the editor and anonymous reviewers for their careful and thoughtful suggestions and comments. I presented earlier versions of this article at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers (Washington, DC), the 2018 Applied Geography Conference (Kent, OH), and the 2018 International Technological Sciences and Design Symposium (Giresun University, Turkey). I am very grateful for feedback from session attendees.

Notes

1 Grade V or worse indicates that the concentrations of ammonia nitrogen, biochemical oxygen demand, and chemical oxygen demand are higher than 2.0, 10, and 10 mg/L, respectively.

2 Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 images are courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey (Citation2017).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Xin Hong

XIN HONG is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Geography at Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242. E-mail: [email protected]. She studies the applications of geospatial technologies in environmental health.

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