Identification of atmospheric trace-element sources by passive biomonitoring employing PCA and variogram analysis

EDUARDO DANIEL WANNAZ; CARLOS ALFREDO HARGUINTEGUY; RAQUEL JASAN; RITA ROSA PLÁ; MARÍA LUISA PIGNATA

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY

TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

Año: 2008 vol. 88 p. 229 - 243

0306-7319

The epiphyte plant Tillandsia capillaris was used as a passive biomonitor to study the relationship between elemental accumulation and emission sources in the province of Códoba, Argentina. The concentrations of As, Ba, Br, Ca, Ce, Co, Cr, Cs, Eu, Fe, Gd, Hf, K, La, Lu, Na, Nd, Rb, Sb, Sc, Se, Sm, Ta, Tb, Th, U, Yb, and Zn were determined in T. capillaris leaves by Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis. A variogram analysis was performed to identify the emission sources of these elements in the study area, obtaining different patterns for each element analysed. A principal-component analysis was subsequently performed to further confirm the different contaminant emission sources and it coincided with the results of the variogram analysis. We observed that the enrichment of most elements was associated with natural sources (soil) and that only some elements showed evidence of enrichement related to sources such as traffic (K, Sb and Zn), industries (Br), and mining activity (Ca).