Surface Water Quality Assessment of River Source Areas and Important Lakes on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

In this paper, the water quality indicators such as total nitrogen, total colony counts, heavy metal pollutants, fluoride and other water quality indicators in the river headwaters areas and important lakes of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau were analyzed. It was found that most of the water samples were generally high in total nitrogen, total salinity was also above 150 mg/L, total colony counts ranged from about 70～200 CFU/mL, arsenic was generally high in the surface water due to background factors, and fluoride was also high in the surface water due to atmospheric long-range transport. To prevent the impact of climate change on surface water in the Tibetan Plateau region and to safeguard the security of China's water resources by exploring the impact of background factors and climate change on the water quality of river source areas and important lakes on the Tibetan Plateau.