Preliminary Study on Distribution of Organochlorine Pesticides and Polychlorinated Biphenyls in Surface Soils and Atmosphere Along the Xihe River in Shenyang City

The concentration of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in surface soils and atmosphere along the Xihe River in Shenyang city were determined to study the residual levels and environmental behaviors of these compounds. Concentrations of HCHs and DDTs were in the range of 2.32~15.90 ng/g with average value of 8.99 ng/g and 9.06~111.6 ng/g with average value of 37.08 ng/g, respectively. The mean concentration of 7 kinds of PCBs was 1.01 ng/g. Results showed that concentrations of OCPs and PCBs in most sampling sites did not exceed the limits of the national environment quality standards for soils. The results also indicated that although lindane might be used in recent years no DDTs input from new pollution sources were found. And DDTs residuals in soils from some sites posed a potential threatening to the ecosystem. The mean concentrations of HCHs, DDTs and PCBs in air samples were 18.97 ng/m³, 42.27 ng/m³ and 20.59 ng/m³ respectively, which means that long distance atmospheric transport of the OCPs may play a significant role in pollution in these areas. The fugacity model was used to study the environmental behaviors of HCHs and DDTs and escaping tendency of HCHs and DDTs from soils to ambient air was found in the studied area.