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Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the sediments of the coastal areas along the southwestern Taiwan.

The objective of this study is to quantify the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) of the sediments along the coast of south-western Taiwan and to investigate possible sources. The south-western coastal area is full of heavy industries. There are tens of industrial parks along with export processing zone, steel-making plant, oil refinery, shipbuilding plant, Hsin-ta pelagic fishing port, Hsin-ta thermal power plant and Kaohsiung international port. It is reasonable that the wastewater went into rivers or pipes and eventually enters coast area.
Concentrations of total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the sediments of south-western Taiwan were between 197.3~2498.9 (ng/g ¡Vdw) with the average of 912.0 (ng/g ¡V dw). Among all stations sampled in this study, A3, located at the waterway of Kaohsiung, has the highest value. The wastewater ejected by ships might be the major factor. The second highest value we got is from C2, which located at the area farer from shoreline than A3. Total organic carbon (TOC) versus median particle size has linear relationship, however, total organic carbon (TOC) versus concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) showed no linear relationship. This is probably due to the wide sampling area of this study and sources of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were not the same.
Principal component analysis shows three principal components were extracted and up to 78.79% of total variance can be explained. As indicated on rotated loadings, the three major components were characterized by 4-6 rings PAH compounds, 3-4 rings PAH compounds and 2-5 rings PAHs compounds, respectively. Results of Hierachical cluster analysis also show three major groups (Group 1, 2 and 3) can be geographically related. In addition, according to isomer ratios of PAH compounds, pollution sources of each group can be specified. Group 1, stations located northern bound, has mainly pyrogenic pollution sources, while Group2, stations located at central area of this study, has pyrogenic/petrogenic sources. For Group 3, stations located southern bound, was mainly polluted by petroleum. In regards to the sediment quality guidelines, ERL and ERM, there are one third of stations exceed ERL regarding to Acp and Phe, but only station A3 exceeds ERL regarding to F1 and Pyr.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0805105-003716
Date05 August 2005
CreatorsWang, Chih-ying
ContributorsFu-Chou Cheng, Wei-Hsien Wang, Chon-Lin Lee
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0805105-003716
Rightsnot_available, Copyright information available at source archive

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