Influence of altitude concerning the contamination of humus  soils in the German Alps: a data evaluation approach  using PyHasse.
OBJECTIVE
In an international project named MONARPOP (Monitoring Network in the Alpine Region for Persistent and other Organic Pollutants), selected chemicals in different environmental media were analysed in the years 2004 and 2005. Seventeen pesticides were chosen and analysed in humus and mineral soil in the German Alps. The samples were taken at different altitudes.


METHODS
In such a rather complex environmental datasets, it is often necessary to compare different sets of criteria and their influence on rankings. In the similarity analysis which is part of the theory of the Hasse diagram technique, we intend to calculate the similarity of different rankings. Furthermore, we perform a so-called dominance-dominance/dominance-separability method, followed by a sensitivity analysis, both subroutines in the newly developed PyHasse programme in order to find out if the concentration of the chemicals can be related to the altitudes at which the samples were taken.


CONCLUSIONS
It can be demonstrated that the altitude has a considerable influence on the concentration of some organic chemicals in humus: The concentrations of some chemicals increase with the altitude. This increase shows certain irregularities for which several explication attempts including possible effects of atmospheric stratification phenomena in valleys have been made.


CONCLUSIONS
These results should be complemented in further studies with MONARPOP monitoring data from other Alpine countries, e.g. Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Slovenia.
Voigt
Kristina
K
Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen-German Research Center for Environmental Health (GmbH), Institute of Biomathematics and Biometry, Neuherberg, Germany. kvoigt@helmholtz-muenchen.de
Brüggemann
Rainer
R
Kirchner
Manfred
M
Schramm
Karl-Werner
KW
D000531:Altitude; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005858:Germany; D006812:Humic Substances / Q000032:analysis; D007700:Kinetics; D010575:Pesticides / Q000032:analysis*; D012987:Soil / Q000032:analysis*; D012989:Soil Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*
D006812:Humic Substances; D010575:Pesticides; D012987:Soil; D012989:Soil Pollutants