Prediction of the wash-off of traffic related semi- and non-volatile organic compounds from urban roads under climate change influenced rainfall characteristics

Abstract

Traffic generated semi and non volatile organic compounds (SVOCs and NVOCs) pose a serious threat to human and ecosystem health when washed off into receiving water bodies by stormwater. Climate change influenced rainfall characteristics makes the estimation of these pollutants in stormwater quite complex. The research study discussed in the paper developed a prediction framework for such pollutants under the dynamic influence of climate change on rainfall characteristics. It was established through principal component analysis (PCA) that the intensity and durations of low to moderate rain events induced by climate change mainly affect the wash-off of SVOCs and NVOCs from urban roads. The study outcomes were able to overcome the limitations of stringent laboratory preparation of calibration matrices by extracting uncorrelated underlying factors in the data matrices through systematic application of PCA and factor analysis (FA). Based on the initial findings from PCA and FA, the framework incorporated orthogonal rotatable central composite experimental design to set up calibration matrices and partial least square regression to identify significant variables in predicting the target SVOCs and NVOCs in four particulate fractions ranging from >300-1 μm and one dissolved fraction of <1 μm. For the particulate fractions range >300-1 μm, similar distributions of predicted and observed concentrations of the target compounds from minimum to 75th percentile were achieved. The inter-event coefficient of variations for particulate fractions of >300-1 μm were 5% to 25%. The limited solubility of the target compounds in stormwater restricted the predictive capacity of the proposed method for the dissolved fraction of <1 μm.

Geographical Distribution and Risk Assessment of Volatile Organic Compounds in Tributaries of the Han River Watershed

“…Research is being conducted in the water environment in various countries: the Netherlands (surface water and river) [22], Greece (surface water) [23], Portugal (surface water) [24], Belgium (surface water) [25], Japan (rainwater) [26,27], the USA (rainwater) [28], Austria (rainwater) [29], Serbia (rainwater) [30], Nigeria (surface water, effluent of M/IWTP) [18], Taiwan (effluent of M/IWTP, rainwater, surface water) [31,32], China (effluent of M/IWTP) [6], and South Korea (surface water, effluent of M/IWTP) [5]. The reported concentration range of VOCs in the water environment ranged from several ng/L to mg/L, and was mainly the highest in the effluent of IWTP.…”

“…The most important aspects of monitoring research are that well-managed analytical equipment, and various application methods for gas and liquid chromatography (GC and LC) are used. The method detection limit (MDL) and limit of quantitation (LOQ) differ for each compound, but are mainly between several ng/L and tens of ng/L [5,6,18,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. The most important method for water environment management is obtaining accurate monitoring and analysis results, and the accumulated results will be used as important data for policy decisions.…”

“…The toluene and xylenes concentrations in the HRW surface water were lower by several orders than those of not only the Netherland surface water from Rhine, Meuse, Northern Delta area, Western Scheldt rivers [22], surface waters of Greece [23], Portugal [24], Belgium [25], Taiwan [32], and Nigeria [18], but also the rainwater of Japan [26,27], USA [28], Australia [29], and Serbia [30]. This implied that wet deposition could be partially considered as a reason for the increased VOC concentrations in surface water and rainwater.…”

Challenges in Mechanistic and Empirical Modelling of Stormwater: Review and Perspectives

“…() showed significant traffic and climate change impacts on water quality by measuring build‐up and wash‐off of heavy metals and petroleum hydrocarbons. Mahbub et al ., () also predicted wash‐off of traffic‐related semi‐ and non‐volatile organic compounds from urban roads under climate change‐influenced rainfall characteristics. Ha and Stenstrom () developed a predictive model for stormwater runoff on a GIS platform based on the unit area loading method and Browne's empirical relation for soil characteristics.…”

Climate, land use and hydrologic sensitivities of stormwater quantity and quality in a complex coastal-urban watershed

“…Bäckström et al (2003) reported a winter driven climatic pattern for speciation and transport of heavy metals in road runoff and roadside total deposition at two Swedish sites. Field-experimental simulations with anticipated rainfall regimes (associated with projected climate change) in the Australian Gold Coast region showed dominating controls of moderate to high rainfalls, low to moderate rainfalls, and low to high rainfalls on the wash-off of, respectively, heavy metals (Mahbub et al, 2010), semi-and non-volatile organic compounds (Mahbub et al, 2012), and volatile organic compounds (Mahbub et al, 2011) from urban roads.…”