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

WANNAZ, E.D.; HARGUINTEGUY, C.A.; JASAN, R.; PLÁ, R.R.; PIGNATA, M.L.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY

Año: 2008 vol. 88 p. 229 - 243

0306-7319

The epiphyte plant Tillandsia capillaris was used as a passive biomonitor to study therelationship between elemental accumulation and emission sources in the province of Co´ rdoba,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 leavesby Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis. A variogram analysis was performed to identifythe emission sources of these elements in the study area, obtaining different patterns for eachelement analysed. A principal-component analysis was subsequently performed to furtherconfirm the different contaminant emission sources and it coincided with the results of thevariogram analysis. We observed that the enrichment of most elements was associated withnatural sources (soil) and that only some elements showed evidence of enrichement related tosources such as traffic (K, Sb and Zn), industries (Br), and mining activity (Ca).