Water, suspended particle and sediment samples from Gao-ping coastal water column were collected and measured to determine the spatial and temporal distributions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) during August 2010 and June 2011. In addition, principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical the cluster analysis (HCA) were performed with chemical fingerprinting to understand the possible sources of PAHs in Gao-ping coast. The correlations between PAHs and several factors such as salinity, temperature and organic carbon were also discussed in the present study.
The total PAH concentrations (dissolved and particulate phase) at four sampling campaigns ranged from 2.09 to 45 ng/L. Concentrations of dissolved PAHs ranged from 2.0 to 39 ng/L and the highest average concentrations were found in November 2010 (10.0 ¡Ó 9.90 ng/L). The particulate PAHs ranged from 0.13 to 40 ng/L and the maximum concentration was found in the estuary in August 2010. The total PAH concentrations of sediment ranged from 125-648 ng/g, which were lower than the Effect Range Low (ERL) and Threshold Effect Level (TEL) values, suggesting that few adverse ecological effects would arise from the PAHs in Gao-ping canyon.
Results from chemical fingerprinting, PCA and HCA indicate that PAHs in this area were from complex sources such as combustion, petroleum, diagenesis or biogenic sources. Sources of PAHs in dissolved phase were mainly from petrogenic and mixed sources, while particulate PAHs were mainly from a mixed source. However, sources of PAHs in November 2010 and February 2011 were mostly from mixed combustion, suggesting that the PAH concentrations in particulate phase might be affected by atmospheric transport. The results showed that perylene in Gao-ping coast and canyon was mainly from the biogenic source. A significant correlaction was found in PAH fingerprinting between the esturine particles and sediment, indicating that the sediments in Gao-ping canyon might mainly come from Gao-ping River.
Correlation analysis showed a significant positive correlation between concentrations of suspended particle and PAHs, while a negative correlation was found between PAH concentrations and temperature. In addition, organic carbon showed a significant correlation with PAHs in sediment samples. The partition coefficients (Koc) values of PAHs were higher than the values from other literatures, suggesting that it might be attributed to soot carbon.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-1129112-133846 |
| Date | 29 November 2012 |
| Creators | Hsu, Sheng-chieh |
| Contributors | Chin-Hsing Lai, Chon-lin Lee, Fung-chi Ko, Chi-ying Hsieh |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-1129112-133846 |
| Rights | user_define, Copyright information available at source archive |
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