Distribution of PCBs and PBDEs in soils along the altitudinal gradients of Balang Mountain, the east edge of the Tibetan Plateau.
Surface soils were collected in Balang Mountain to explore the environmental process of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) during air transport. The average concentrations of ∑(25)PCBs and ∑(13)PBDEs in soils were 163 pg/g and 26 pg/g, respectively. The significant correlations between the concentrations of pollutants and total organic carbon (TOC) indicated the importance of TOC in accumulation potential of POPs. The slopes from fitted curves of PCBs were highly related with logK(oa), demonstrating that TOC dominates the soil-air exchange of PCBs. The TOC-normalized concentrations of contaminants in samples from below-treeline were higher than those from alpine meadow, probably due to the forest filter effect. The increasing trends of the concentrations with altitude from the alpine meadow samples, could be attributed to the mountain cold-trapping effect. And the weak cold-trapping effect of POPs might be due to the less precipitation in 2008 when comparing with those in 2006.
State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China. xiaoyanzheng1978@gmail.com
Xiaoyan
X
Zheng
Xiande
X
Liu
Guibin
G
Jiang
Yawei
Y
Wang
Qinghua
Q
Zhang
Yaqi
Y
Cai
Zhiyuan
Z
Cong
D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis; D000531:Altitude; D001272:Atmosphere / Q000737:chemistry; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D055768:Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers / Q000032:analysis*; D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls / Q000032:analysis*; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry; D012989:Soil Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D018609:Tibet
D000393:Air Pollutants; D055768:Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers; D012987:Soil; D012989:Soil Pollutants; D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls