The Effects of Oil and Gas Produced Water on Soil Bacterial Community Structure in the Arid Desert Area

The safe utilization and risk assessment of produced water (PW) from oil and gas fields for desert irrigation have received increasing attention in recent years. In this context, this study aimed to analyze structural changes in soil bacterial community, and assess the environmental impact of PW discharge and irrigation over time. High-throughput sequencing technology was employed to examine the structure of the soil bacterial community in the constructed wetland and its surrounding desert vegetation irrigation region where PW was released for a considerable amount of time (30 years). The results revealed that long-term discharge of PW and irrigation significantly reduced the abundance of the soil bacterial community but did not significantly alter the richness and diversity of the soil bacterial community. Proteobacteria was the dominant bacterial phyla in soil, but in irrigated and drained areas, the dominant bacterial phyla changed from Alphaproteobacteria to Gammaproteobacteria, the Firmicutes abundance was significantly reduced.