title: Assessing the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) pollution of urban stormwater runoff: a dynamic modeling approach.
abstract: Urban stormwater runoff delivers a significant amount of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), mostly of atmospheric origin, to receiving water bodies. The PAH pollution of urban stormwater runoff poses serious risk to aquatic life and human health, but has been overlooked by environmental modeling and management. This study proposed a dynamic modeling approach for assessing the PAH pollution and its associated environmental risk. A variable time-step model was developed to simulate the continuous cycles of pollutant buildup and washoff. To reflect the complex interaction among different environmental media (i.e. atmosphere, dust and stormwater), the dependence of the pollution level on antecedent weather conditions was investigated and embodied in the model. Long-term simulations of the model can be efficiently performed, and probabilistic features of the pollution level and its risk can be easily determined. The applicability of this approach and its value to environmental management was demonstrated by a case study in Beijing, China. The results showed that Beijing's PAH pollution of road runoff is relatively severe, and its associated risk exhibits notable seasonal variation. The current sweeping practice is effective in mitigating the pollution, but the effectiveness is both weather-dependent and compound-dependent. The proposed modeling approach can help identify critical timing and major pollutants for monitoring, assessing and controlling efforts to be focused on. The approach is extendable to other urban areas, as well as to other contaminants with similar fate and transport as PAHs.
authors.affiliation: Center for Water Research, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China; Beijing Key Laboratory for Solid Waste Utilization and Management, Beijing 100871, PR China. Electronic address: yizheng@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Center for Water Research, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China.
authors.forename: Zhongrong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Center for Water Research, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Center for Water Research, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: MOE Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: MOE Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China.
authors.forename: Youbin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.affiliation: MOE Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China.
authors.forename: Xuejun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D004323:Drainage, Sanitary / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D008956:Models, Chemical; D011084:Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons / Q000032:analysis*; D011891:Rain; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid; D062065:Wastewater / Q000737:chemistry*; D014872:Water Movements; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*; D014877:Water Pollution, Chemical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
chemical_list: D011084:Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons; D062065:Wastewater; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
keywords: Dynamic modeling; PAHs; Risk assessment; Road dust; Stormwater pollution