Monitoring of persistent organic pollutants in soils of the Czech ...

1)
MONITORING OF PERSISTENT ORGANIC POLLUTANTS IN SOILS OF THE
CZECH REPUBLIC
Milan Sáňka 1) , Jiří Zbíral 2) , Karel Provazník 2) , Šárka Poláková 2)
Centre for Environment and Land Assessment EKOTOXA s.r.o. Kosmákova 28, 615 00 Brno,
tel.: +420 549 241 411, e-mail: milan.sanka@iol.cz,
2)
The Central Institute for Supervising and Testing in Agriculture, Hroznová 2, 656 06 Brno, e-mail:
jiri.zbiral@ukzuz.cz, karel.provaznik@ukzuz.cz
Introduction
Soil survey, monitoring and inventarization programs are inevitable tools to define soil properties for a
given area (country), including the status of pollution. Most European countries have developed their
own monitoring system focused on the main soil characteristics. Agricultural purposes were
emphasised but environmental interests are becoming to play more and more important role in these
systems. That is why also potentially toxic substances, including persistent organic pollutants (POPs)
are being introduced into monitoring systems.
In the Czech Republic the systematic monitoring of POPs is carried out on two levels:
1. As a part of basal soil monitoring scheme (BSMS) on permanent plots on agricultural soil and
in protected areas (conducts Central Institute for Supervising and Testing in Agriculture),
2. Monitoring for specific purposes in order to find the sources and levels of POPs in different
areas and to propose some remediation measures (conducts Research Institute for Land
Reclamation and Soil Conservation).
The system and results of BSMS is the object of this contribution. The BSMS became a part of the
Czech legislation by accepting the Act on fertilisers No. 156/98 S.B. (in wording of later regulations)
and connected decrees as a tool supporting decision-making process in state administration.
Evaluation and continuous assessment of both levels of monitoring is carried out and submitted to the
Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Environment.
Figure 1. Location of permanent POPs monitoring plots in the Czech Republic.

Materials and method
The program of monitoring is being realized in different types of land use on agricultural soil (arable
land, grassland, special crops) since 1992. The irregular network consists of 189 representative
monitoring plots in standard conditions, 27 monitoring plots in highly polluted areas and of 40
monitoring plots on undisturbed soil in protected areas. The contents of selected POPs (table 1) are
monitored on 35 plots on agricultural land (chosen from 189 standard condition plots and from 27
contaminated plots) and on 5 plots in the protected areas (figure 1). The sampling period is one-year.
Each monitoring plot both in the agricultural and protected areas subsystem is a rectangle covering an
area of 1000m 2 (25 x 40m). Individual samples are taken from each sampled layer according to the
scheme in figure. 2. The individual subsamples are bulked to provide approximately one kilogram of a
composite soil sample from each sampled layer. There are two sampled layers on agricultural soils:
plough layer and subplough layer with the thickness of the plough layer according to the particular
conditions on the plot. The maximum depth of a subplough layer is up to 60 cm. Ten centimetres of
soil between the two sampled layers is excluded. Within the protected areas subsystems the soil is
sampled according to A and B soil genetic horizons.
Figure 2: Scheme for soil sampling on the monitoring plot.
In the period of 1994 – 1997 only the plots with wheat on agricultural soils were sampled (i.e. the set
of plots was different each year). Since 2000 the plots given in figure 1 are sampled each year,
regardless the crop. More details are in table 1.
Table 1. List of individual POPs analysed in BSMS samples each year
substance
period
Atrazin and its metabolites
deethylatrazin
till 1996 incl.
deisopropylatrazin
till 1996 incl.
Persistent organochlorinated pesticides and their metabolites
αHCH, βHCH, γHCH 1994-97, since 2000
HCB 1994-97, since 2000
o,p'-DDE, p,p'-DDE, o,p'-DDD, p,p'-DDD, o,p'-DDT, p,p'-DDT 1994-97, since 2000
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB)
congeners 138, 153, 180 since 1994
congeners 138, 153, 180, 28, 52, 101 since 1998
congeners 138, 153, 180, 28, 52, 101, 118 since 2000
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH)
16 individual hydrocarbons according to the EPA list since 1997
Results and conclusions
The basic statistical characteristics for the contents of all observed POPs during the whole period of
monitoring are given in table 2. Only data for arable soil (both plough layer and subsoil) were
processed statistically since there has not been enough data for other types of land use in individual
years yet.

Table 2. Basic statistical characteristics for contents of POPs on arable soil. (µg.kg -1 )
Sum of PAH 1) Sum of PCB 2) HCB DDT 3) DDE 3) DDD 3)
year descriptive
statistics P S P S P S P S P S P S
ar. mean - - 1,1 1,6 5,6 3,1 19,2 12,4 10,9 7,9 2,5 1,6
1995
median - - 0,8 0,8 5,7 2,6 15,4 10,1 12,0 6,3 1,2 0,8
ar. mean - - 1,9 1,1 5,2 2,4 26,8 15,5 11,4 7,6 2,6 1,3
1996
median - - 0,8 0,8 6,1 1,9 21,4 8,8 10,7 6,2 2,1 1,0
ar. mean 986 433 7,9 3,5 8,2 6,4 114,6 54,4 72,2 22,3 9,6 6,8
1997
median 667 323 0,8 0,8 7,2 4,4 37,4 17,0 19,8 14,6

monitoring period, however, there is a considerable variation among the individual years on several
plots. It can be due to some spot contamination from agricultural appliances.
The results for organochlorinated pesticides are shown in figure 3. The contents of HCH were below
the detection limit of the analytical procedure in all cases. There is a change in trends of the individual
pesticides in two periods: period 1994-1997 in which the location of plots was changed each year and
period 2000-2002 in which the same plots were sampled. There is no very clear trend in the first
period, but in the second one we can see increasing of HCB and DDE and decreasing of DDT
(possibly changing of DDT to metabolite DDE). This can be seen both in plough layer and subsoil,
although without statistical significance. No such trends were found for DDD metabolite.
Contents of all substances were statistically significantly lower in subsoil than in plough layer.
The limit values were exceeded mostly for DDT (36% of samples in 2002).
Figure 3. Medians of the organochlorinated pesticides contents on permanent BSMS monitoring plots
in the period 1994 – 2002.
µg/kg
50
40
HCB, DDE, DDD, DDT
1994 1995 1996 1997 2000 2001 2002
66.8
30
20
10
0
topsoil subsoil topsoil subsoil topsoil subsoil topsoil subsoil
HCB DDE DDD DDT
References
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