Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls in soils of Mayabeque, Cuba

Abstract

Cuba is a country in transition with a considerable potential for economic growth. Soils are recipients and integrators of chemical pollution, a frequent negative side effect of increasing industrial activities. Therefore, we established a soil monitoring network to monitor polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in soils of Mayabeque, a Cuban province southeast of Havana. Concentrations of the sum of the 16 US EPA PAHs and of the seven IRMM PCBs in soils from 39 locations ranged from 20 to 106 μg kg and from 1.1 to 7.6 μg kg, respectively. While such concentrations can be considered as low overall, they were in several cases correlated with the distance of sampling sites to presumed major emission sources, with some of the concomitantly investigated source diagnostic PAH ratios, and with black carbon content. The presented data adds to the limited information on soil pollution in the Caribbean region and serves as a reference time point before the onset of a possible further industrial development in Cuba. It also forms the basis to set up and adapt national environmental standards.

Main factors in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons accumulations in the long-term technogenic contaminated soil

“…The content of PAHs in the soils of the background territory didn't exceed the norms established for agricultural territories (Maliszewska-Kordybach, 1996), average level of pollutants in soils of temperate latitudes and generally corresponds to the soils of natural areas (Wilcke, 2000;Sosa et al, 2017;Pikovskii et al, 2019;Hong et al,. 2020).…”

Diversity and Metabolic Potential of a PAH-Degrading Bacterial Consortium in Technogenically Contaminated Haplic Chernozem, Southern Russia

“…In the background soil of the monitoring site of protected area A, the total content of 12 priority PAHs was 262 µg kg −1 (see Figure 2), which does not exceed the content of these pollutants in the soils of background regions of different regions of the world [39][40][41][42]. The content of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) is lower than the 0.02 mg kg −1 , maximum permissible concentration (MPC) (Figure 3) [43].…”

Heavy metals in soils of Mayabeque, Cuba: multifaceted and hardly discernable contributions from pedogenic and anthropogenic sources

“…On the one hand, QRV might be adapted, as, for instance, the values for Cd and Cu should be raised after extended Fe calibration concentrations due to the high pedogenic baseline. On the other hand, soil monitoring should be extended and executed regularly as already suggested in Sosa et al ( 2017 , 2019 ). A long-term monitoring network allows the researchers to report to the CITMA on provincial and national levels.…”

“…Soil samples that were collected between January and April 2014 during the dry season in 39 different sites in the above-mentioned municipalities (Fig. 1 ), as described in Sosa et al ( 2017 ), were used for analysis. The main site selection criteria were the municipalities, soil type, land use (crop cultivation, forest, and pasture; Table S3 ), and human activity reflected by the potential pollution sources (Table S3 , Fig.…”

“…1 ), in which industry and agriculture co-exist at short distances. As such, it is a model province for the whole country and ideally suited to carry out a monitoring programme for pollutants in Cuba, as recently illustrated for persistent organic pollutants (Sosa et al, 2017 ). About 383,400 inhabitants live in this region that has an area of about 3,744 km 2 .…”