Air pollution involving megacities and adjacent agroecosystems of South America using pas-XAD

COSTA P; MIGLIORANZA K.S.B.; DUTRA M.; WILLE T; ONDARZA P.M.; GAMBOA N.; RESTREPO B.; WANIA F.; FILLMANN G.

San Pablo

Simposio; 35th International Symposium on Halogenated Persistent Organic Pollutants (Dioxin2015); 2015

PUBLIC HEALTH FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SÃO PAULO

About half of the world population lives in urban areas which are rapidly growing. By 2030, twelve more city are expected to be ranked as megacities. As of 2015, there are 37 megacities worldwide, which are defined as urban areas with at least 10 million people. The number and size of megacities has increased dramatically. These massive urban agglomerations profoundly influenced the surrounding environments with impacts at local, regional and global levels especially regarding air quality. In recent decades, air pollution has become one of the most important problems of megacities. The vast majority of new megacities are projected to emerge in developing countries where the full implementation of production agriculture will increase the likelihood of an intersection of impact between urban and agricultural areas. At the moment, Latin America has five urban areas that can be classified as megacities: Bogotá (Columbia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), São Paulo (Brazil) and the metropolitan area of Lima-Callao (Peru). The issue of air pollution involving megacities and adjacent agro-ecosystems has received special attention for its increasing relevance, mainly related to the potential effects on regional environmental quality. Despite its potential to affect the environmental at regional scale, there is a lack of knowledge about sources, levels and interactions among atmospheric contaminants coming from these areas. Among different atmospheric contaminants, semi-volatile pollutants from urban and agricultural sources can combine in the air and waterways to increase deposition in sensitive ecosystems. Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are known to be of great relevance due to their physicochemical properties (long-range distribution, persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity). Consequently, international efforts have being made to reduce emissions of POPs to the environment (the Stockholm Convention on POPs; May 17, 2004). Although the widespread occurrence of POPs in the environment has been well documented, much less is known about the long-range atmospheric transport of ?new? POPs, current use pesticides (CUPs) and other contaminants of emerging concern. Thus, the present study aims to assess the contamination of POPs (chlorinated pesticides, PCBs and PBDEs), current use pesticides (CUPs), PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and some emerging compounds at the atmospheric environment of megacities and adjacent areas using XAD-2-based passive atmospheric sampler (PAS). The XAD2-based passive atmospheric sampler has the advantage of being cheaper and easier to run, making it possible to increase the spatial and temporal resolution. A detailed description of sampler design and operation is provided at Wania et al. Up to twelfth PAS were radially installed (in duplicates with up to four resins per site) within the urban areas of three megacities (Buenos Aires - Argentina, Lima - Peru and Bogotá - Colombia) from downtown to the adjacent agricultural areas. São Paulo (Brazil) will be soon the fourth megacity to be assessed. Since 2013 PAS have been deployed for sampling periods of one year and the study will last for at least two consecutive years.