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| Titel |
Long-term airborne contamination studied by attic dust in an industrial area: Ajka, Hungary |
| VerfasserIn |
P. Völgyesi, G. Jordan, Cs. Szabo |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2012
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 14 (2012) |
| Datensatznummer |
250064895
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Heavy industrial activities such as mining, metal industry, coal fired power plants have
produced large amount of by-products and wide-spread pollution, particularly in the period of
centrally dictated economy after WWII, in Hungary. Several studies suggest that significant
amount of these pollutants have been deposited in the urban environment. Nowadays, more
than half of the world’s population is living in urban areas and people spend almost
80% of their lives indoors in developed countries increasing human health risk
due to contamination present in urban dwellings. Attic dust sampling was applied
to determine the long-term airborne contamination load in the industrial town of
Ajka (Hungary). There has been a high industrial activity in Ajka since the end of
the 19th century. In addition to aluminum and alumina industry, coal mining, coal
fired power plant and glass industry sites, generated numerous waste heaps which
act as multi-contamination sources in the area. In October 2010 the Ajka red mud
tailings pond failed and caused an accidental regional contamination of international
significance.
The major objective of this research was to study and map the spatial distribution of
heavy metal contamination in airborne attic dust samples. At 27 sampling sites 30 attic dust
samples were collected. Sampling strategy followed a grid-based stratified random sampling
design. In each cell a house for attic dust sample collection was selected that was located the
closest to a randomly generated point in the grid cell. The project area covers a 8x8 grid of
1x1 km cells with a total area of 64 km2. In order to represent long-term industrial pollution,
houses with attics kept intact for at least 30-40 years were selected for sampling. Sampling
included the collection of background samples remotely placed from the industrialized urban
area.
The concentration of the major and toxic elements (Al, Ca, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, P, S, and
As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Li, Mo, Ni, Pb, Se, Sn, Sr, Ti, V, Zn) were measured with ICP-OES
and the mercury content was measured with atom absorption spectrometry. Our results show
a good spatial correlation of contamination sources and attic dust sampling locations reveal
spatial trends as well. Attic dust seems to be an efficient and cheep sampling medium to study
long-term airborne contamination and possibly associated human health risk in an industrial
area. |
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